Seoul, May 27
Banks' loan rates fell for the fifth straight month in April, data showed on Tuesday, as the central bank has been on a monetary easing cycle.
The average lending rate of banks applied to new loans came to 4.19 percent last month, down 0.17 percentage point from a month earlier, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK).
The rate has been on a constant decline since December 2024, reports news agency.
In detail, banks' average lending rate for corporate loans shed 0.18 percentage point to 4.14 percent, while their lending rate on household loans lost 0.15 percentage point to 4.36 percent.
The rate that banks pay for deposits also fell 0.13 percentage point to 2.71 percent, the seventh consecutive monthly decline.
The spread on banks' lending and deposit rates, accordingly, narrowed to 1.48 percentage points in April from the previous month's 1.52 percentage points, the data showed.
Meanwhile, South Korea's top 30 conglomerates are increasingly choosing people with a business background over former prosecutors or professors as their outside directors, industry data showed on Tuesday.
According to data from corporate tracker Leaders Index, 239 listed units of the country's top 30 conglomerates by assets hired 152 new outside directors in 2025, bringing the total number of board members to 876.