Banks petition Ministry of Interior and Safety to revise selection criteria
Six regional banks, led by Gwangju Bank, have petitioned the government to codify rules barring local agricultural cooperative performance data from being counted as NH NongHyup Bank's results when municipalities select their official treasury banks. The move comes ahead of an expected competitive bid later this year for the treasury contract of the newly merged South Jeolla Province-Gwangju Special City, in which NH NongHyup Bank and major commercial banks are anticipated to participate.
Representatives of Gwangju Bank, Jeonbuk Bank, Busan Bank, IM Bank, Kyongnam Bank and Jeju Bank visited the Ministry of Interior and Safety in Sejong on Friday to propose revisions to the criteria used for designating municipal treasury banks. Kim Jong-hun, deputy president of Gwangju Bank, said the six banks "spoke with one voice to level an uneven playing field and establish fair and reasonable treasury selection standards."
The banks asked the ministry to codify a rule excluding local agricultural cooperative performance from NH NongHyup Bank's figures in treasury evaluations, improve the methodology for assessing domestic and international credit ratings, and strengthen the objectivity and consistency of the treasury designation criteria.
The regional banks argue that inconsistency has arisen because individual municipalities currently differ on whether to count local cooperative results as part of NH NongHyup Bank's performance. In some jurisdictions, recognizing those cooperative figures as the bank's own gives NH NongHyup Bank an advantage in scoring categories such as branch count and regional contribution, undermining fair competition, they said.
Meanwhile, NH NongHyup Bank was selected in May as the inaugural operator of the No. 1 treasury account for the South Jeolla Province-Gwangju Special City, a position worth about 21 trillion won ($13.7 billion). From Wednesday, when the special city officially launched, through Dec. 31, NH NongHyup Bank is managing the No. 1 treasury account while Gwangju Bank handles the No. 2 account for the six-month interim period.
The institution to operate the treasury from January 2027 onward will be selected through a separate ordinance process in the second half of this year, with the winning bank set to run the special city's treasury for up to four years starting next year. Beyond NH NongHyup Bank and Gwangju Bank, a broad range of commercial banks is expected to enter the bidding.
forest@heraldcorp.com
