November 24, 2009

The nation's anti-trust watchdog said yesterday it has launched a preliminary probe on local banks to determine whether they had colluded to fix the spread for mortgage loan rates and took unfair profits from net interest margins, government and industry sources said yesterday."We have received several tips that the banking sector is suspected of forming a cartel on interest rates," an unnamed Fair Trade Commission official was quoted by Yonhap News as saying.

"We will look into whether banks shared information on rates before they changed interest rates on loans," the official said. It is the first time that the FTC has conducted a probe into banks' loan rates.FTC spokesman Kim Seong-ha neither confirmed nor denied the Yonhap News report, saying that it is not the FTC's policy to disclose any information regarding an anti-trust probe.In March last year, the anti-trust watchdog levied 9.59 billion won of fines on eight banks for fixing the service charges for export exchange bills. On April, 17 banks were slapped 4.35 billion won in fines for collectively raising giro charges.

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