2025 Financial Complaints Up 10.4%, Counseling Up 6.4%

FSS Korea published 2025 complaint and counseling statistics showing double-digit percentage increases across all three tracked categories. Financial investment sector complaints surged 65.4% due to securities firm system outages, while non-life insurance complaints climbed 19.6%. Financial counseling grew 6.4% year-on-year, partly attributable to expanded outreach and increased financial planning awareness. The revised Lending Business Act, effective July 2025, drove a notable rise in illegal financing damage reports (+20,218 cases).

Financial institutions operating in Korea should monitor their complaint-handling performance against these benchmarks. The sharp rise in investment-sector complaints linked to IT failures highlights technology resilience as an operational risk, while the surge in illegal financing reports following the amended Lending Business Act signals heightened supervisory attention to unlicensed lending activities and consumer harm remediation. Firms with significant Korean operations should review their internal dispute-resolution procedures and ensure compliance with updated lending regulations.