Korean Job Discussion Forums

[oneota]

Does any-body have any good suggestions on safely investing savings in Korea (e.g., equivalents of CDs or bonds)?

[gi66y]

Most banks have a "savings account" that you can put your money in if you're looking for flexibility with a decent interest rate.

The one I have pays between 3 and 3.5% (currently 3.4%) and has a minimum deposit of 3 or 5 million and I can withdraw at any time. The underlying asset is bonds...although you can get different savings accounts with different underlying assets...ie: stocks,bonds or most any index.

They also had some other interesting investments. Some of them tied up your money for 6 months or a year and others didn't and some of them had little clauses that would pay special bonus interest if the market did certain things. In all of them the principal seemed to be guaranteed, but he did say something about if the market went goofy then you could lose some of your original investment but that was an infrequent occurence.

[bucheon bum]

I put my money into a CD. It was only one year long, so the interest rate was no more than 4% (don't remember the exact interest rate I had).

My ex-girlfriend signed up for an account with Nonghyup where you can put in up to 1 million won/month and when you reach 20 million, the bank will throw in another million. In other words, around 5% profit if you put in the max each month. Nothing special, but better than just leaving it in savings.

If you're interested, you can just go to any Korean bank and inquire. I'd recommend bringing a Korean along with you for translation purposes; I certainly wouldn't count on anyone there speaking English.

[oneota]

Hi. I was so busy teaching, I didn't get around to checking at my bank (HanaBank) until this week. I was told, despite repeatedly asking (via a Korean student fluent in Enligh tough totally ignorant of banking) that the only thing they had was my kind of account, which pays 0.01% every quarter. They told him/me that that was the savings account they offer. Can any-one help? My student assistant was too reticent for me to drag him around to other banks, as I wanted to do. So, maybe if some-one can tell me the word for CD, I might get some-where.

[Wangja]

Try KITC - branch in Holiday Inn hotel - they are paying over 5% gross for one year deposits. My last account was rolled over in September at 6.27% but it has dropped since then.

[sundubuman]

I'd recommend going to Itaewon's KEB branch. They are used to foreigners and will gladly help you set up a CD, either for 3,6, or 12 months (and if you just know you'll stay in Korea, you can get higher rates for 24 and 36 month cds).

[sundubuman]

here is KEB's deposit info page in English. Usually, Korean banks will match rates, or at least try to. So if they don't have a KEB near you, you might be able to negotiate a rate.

http://www.keb.co.kr/IBS/english/b2c/deposit/