Credit card woes hit Kookmin
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SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- Kookmin Bank, South Korea's top lender, said Monday its quarterly net loss has widened.
It has been hit by increasing provision costs to pay for potential losses from its struggling credit card businesses.
Kookmin posted a 229.7 billion won ($196.8 million) net loss in the fourth quarter ended December 31, compared with a 202.6 billion won shortfall a year earlier.
Kookmin, which controls 40 percent of South Korea's household loan market, looks set to bail out its own credit card operation and the LG Card Co because of bad consumer debt.
The bank is set to return to profit in 2004 on revived domestic spending in South Korea, Asia's fourth-largest economy, and as credit card delinquencies fall off.
Additional costs to clean up bad loans from the credit card sector are likely to weigh on the bank's earnings for the first half.
Shares in Kookmin, the country's third-biggest issue with a market value of $14 billion, have risen 13 percent over the past six months, under-performing the broader market which has jumped 16 percent.
Copyright 2004
Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
