Woori Bank said on Tuesday it will urgently activate an emergency management financial support programme worth 18.4 trillion won to minimise financial market volatility and real-economy impacts from uncertainty in the Middle East.

Jin-wan Jeong (정진완), who attended a financial sector meeting on the Middle East situation chaired by the Financial Services Commission chairman on March 30, convened an emergency inspection meeting on the Middle East situation to quickly support companies and individual customers struggling with rising raw material prices and exchange rates. Executives in charge of corporate banking, credit support, mutual growth finance and risk attended the meeting and decided to prepare broad financial support and implement it immediately.

Woori Bank will provide a total of 18.3 trillion won for companies directly or indirectly affected by the Middle East situation, including 17.5 trillion won in liquidity support and 800 billion won in export-import support. For this, about 800 corporate loan team leaders at branches nationwide identified on-the-ground difficulties and selected focus support companies in 673 industries, totalling about 40,000 firms, facing supply chain disruptions and liquidity shortages.

It will first put 13 trillion won into new loans for these companies to support smoother cash flow through expanded loan supply, guaranteed loans for small and medium-sized and mid-sized firms, and policy-linked financial support.

It also plans to put 4.5 trillion won into existing loans to substantially ease repayment burdens through interest rate cuts and deferred instalment repayments to ease liquidity strains.

The 800 billion won in export-import financial support will be used to promote payment stability, including emergency working capital for raw-material importers and expanded limits for trade finance and letters of credit. In particular, it plans to keep credit limits stable for the petrochemical industry and also provide support for business restructuring.

It will also operate a dedicated "exchange rate counselling SOS" team for customers whose operations are being disrupted by sharp exchange rate fluctuations, and hold tailored foreign-exchange risk management seminars as needed.

◆ 100 billion won support for individuals and vulnerable groups

It will also provide livelihood stability financial support worth about 100 billion won for individual customers and financially vulnerable groups.

It will first quickly provide emergency living stability funds to low-income and vulnerable groups, and apply a 7 percent interest rate cap on personal credit loans being used to effectively ease interest burdens.

It also decided to strengthen monitoring of volatile customer investment products such as ETFs, and upgrade portfolio diagnosis and guidance systems by customer to thoroughly prevent customer asset losses.

Woori Bank is also strengthening its management system by sharing a Weekly Insight report, which updates Middle East-related industry information in real time, with branches nationwide and analysing the impact of the situation by industry to quickly support affected companies.

It also strengthened emergency response systems at its overseas bases, and branches in the Middle East such as Dubai and Bahrain set up alternative business sites in safe countries.

Jeong, who chaired the meeting, said, "Woori Bank must provide practical help to companies and individual customers suffering difficulties due to a worsening Middle East situation." He added, "We must listen to voices from the field, work actively to minimise damage, and proceed without disruption with productive finance and inclusive finance."