韩国金融产业劳动组合宣布9月4日发动约2万人总罢工集会，抗议政府将金融委员会、金融监督院及国策银行等机构迁出首都圈的路线图

Concerns are mounting in South Korea's financial sector after the government unveiled a roadmap for relocating central administrative agencies out of the capital region. Critics warn that if the relocation of financial institutions, including the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service, goes ahead, the loss of supervisory staff and weaker on-site oversight could raise the risk of financial accidents.
The Korean Financial Industry Union will hold a general strike rally in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, on the 4th. At a press conference at the Bankers Club in Jung-gu, Seoul, on the 3rd, a day before the strike, the union said the government "is trying to shake, by its own hand, the competitiveness of Seoul, which has risen to become the world's eighth-largest financial center." Based on the union's advance tally, about 20,000 people are expected to take part. All 42 chapters under the union, including those at state-run banks, commercial banks and mutual finance institutions, will join.
The union said the government "must first thoroughly verify what effects the first round of relocating public institutions had on easing concentration in the capital region and revitalizing regional economies, and what problems of staff departures and living conditions remain, before discussing a second round." It added that "forcibly moving financial institutions such as the Korea Development Bank, the Industrial Bank of Korea, the Export-Import Bank of Korea and cooperatives including Nonghyup, while ignoring the distinctive nature of a financial industry built on specialized personnel, clustering and collaboration systems, will end up damaging the competitiveness of the financial industry."
Yoon Seok-gu, chairman of the Korean Financial Industry Union, said, "Having financial firms, financial policy and supervisory bodies, and specialized personnel gathered close together to share information and make quick judgments is exactly what clustering effects and competitiveness are." He added, "If the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service move to the provinces, financial firms will also have to move to be near these bodies, and all those costs will be passed on to the financial firms as well."
Kim Jung-hyun, chairman of the union's Kyongnam Bank chapter, urged the government to "stop playing a board game of rolling dice at will to move buildings, and instead first take care of regional banks and local finance, which are already fighting regional economic slumps and population decline."
Ryu Jang-hee, chairman of the union's Industrial Bank of Korea chapter, said, "I watched the prime minister's announcement on relocation today, but it only confirmed that the validity and effects of the policy still have not been sufficiently verified." He stressed that "if financial institutions are relocated in a uniform and mechanical manner at a time when Seoul has been nurtured as a financial center to strengthen international financial competitiveness, it will damage the achievements built up so far, and the harm will ultimately fall on the public, shareholders and workers."
Inside and outside the financial industry, there are concerns that financial accidents could occur if the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service leave the area where financial firms are concentrated. Even under identical regulations, greater physical distance means routine and continuous supervision does not take place, strengthening financial firms' appetite for risk.
According to a U.S. Federal Reserve working paper released in 2017, the U.S. government in 1983 moved the headquarters of the regional Federal Home Loan Bank overseeing Arkansas, Texas and other states from Little Rock, Arkansas, to Dallas, Texas. In response, 37 of the 48 supervisory staff who objected to the forced relocation resigned, leaving two on-site examiners responsible for 500 savings and loan associations. As oversight loosened, financial institutions rapidly increased their exposure to high-risk real estate investments. In the end, 24 of them failed, and the deposit insurance fund bore about $5.4 billion, equivalent to $10 billion in 2018 terms.
A 2024 paper found that bank supervisory agencies including the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation closed 11 offices between 2002 and 2013, and that nonperforming loan ratios rose significantly in the affected regions. The same reason lies behind the money laundering case involving some 200 billion euros at the Estonian branch of Danske Bank, Denmark's largest bank, between 2007 and 2015. Denmark's financial supervisory authority, based in Copenhagen, failed to properly oversee the geographically distant Estonian branch.