[Anchor]
It has been revealed that public institutions have been operating in-house loan programs that violate government guidelines. In particular, even institutions responsible for real estate affairs were found to be lending large sums of money to their employees at low interest rates. This is bound to cause a deep sense of relative deprivation among ordinary citizens who struggle to use commercial banks amid tightened loan restrictions.
Here is a report by Jeon Hyeong-u.
[Reporter]
The Korea Housing & Urban Guarantee Corporation, an affiliate of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport that handles housing-related guarantees and policy projects.
It loans up to 200 million won to employees for purchasing housing, with an interest rate of 2.5% per annum and a repayment term of within 20 years.
This year, 13 employees received 1.9 billion won in loans.
The problem is that this goes against government guidelines.
The Ministry of Economy and Finance set the per-person limit for public institution employee housing loans at 70 million won back in 2021.
The interest rate must be equal to or higher than the bank household loan rate announced by the Bank of Korea, which is set at 4.39% per annum or higher for this quarter.
A complete investigation of 30 public institutions under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport revealed that the Korea Housing & Urban Guarantee Corporation, the Korea Real Estate Board, and the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) have been operating in-house loan systems in violation of the guidelines.
The Korea Real Estate Board has been providing up to 140 million won for housing funds at an interest rate of 2.2% for up to 15 years.
In the first half of this year alone, 15 people borrowed 2.1 billion won.
At LH, the main housing supply agency, the scale of loans provided under terms more favorable than government guidelines reached around 7 billion won for 93 employees in the first half of this year.
Ordinary citizens, who find it difficult to get loans from banks due to the government's tightened management of household debt, feel a sense of deprivation.
[Lee Yong-jae / Yeonsu-gu, Incheon : Blocking everything they can block while giving out loans among themselves, isn't that a bit unfair?]
In-house loans are not factored into the Debt Service Ratio (DSR), which also undermines the effectiveness of lending regulations.
[Kang Dae-shik / National Assembly Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee (People Power Party) : Housing loans more favorable than government standards continue to persist within public institutions. I think the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport should conduct a complete investigation and immediately improve the system.]
Public institutions explained, "Revising in-house loan regulations requires the consent of the labor union, which has delayed the implementation of the guidelines."
While violating the guidelines can result in point deductions in management evaluations, critics point out that the score weighting related to in-house loans is negligible, and therefore the effectiveness of the penalties needs to be increased.
(Video reporting: Lee Moo-jin, Lim Woo-shik | Video editing: Kim Ho-jin, Design: Kim Ye-ji)
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