Korea[₩]

Institutional framework

The Bank of Korea Act stipulates the goal of monetary policy as follows: "The Bank shall contribute to the sound development of the national economy through ensuring price stability, while giving due consideration to financial stability in carrying out its monetary policy.

The Bank of Korea maintains a flexible inflation targeting system to effectively achieve price stability, which is the primary objective of monetary policy. The inflation target is currently set at 2.0% in terms of consumer price inflation (year-on-year). In ensuring price stability over the medium-term, the Bank pays careful attention to the impact of monetary policy on financial stability.

The Monetary Policy Board, the supreme policy-setting body of the Bank of Korea, deliberates and decides Korean monetary policy at the highest level. The Monetary Policy Board is made up of seven members, including the Governor and the Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank of Korea. The decisions made at its meetings are adopted through a simple majority with at least five members in attendance, unless otherwise specified. The meetings to determine the direction of monetary policy, mainly setting the Base Rate, are hosted eight times a year. After the meeting, a press release is made available and the Governor of the Bank of Korea holds a press conference to explain the details of and the background to the decision. The minutes detailing the discussions during the meeting are made public after two weeks.

Key features of the monetary policy implementation framework

The Bank of Korea adopts an interest rate-oriented monetary policy operation. Thus, the Bank determines its policy rate, the Bank of Korea Base Rate, and maintains the overnight call rate closely aligned with the policy rate using its policy instruments. The Base Rate is the reference rate applied in transactions such as RPs between the Bank of Korea and its financial institution counterparts, functioning both as the fixed rate for its sales of securities to absorb excess liquidity and as the minimum tender rate for its purchases to provide liquidity. The Bank uses open market operations, lending and deposit facilities, and a reserve requirement system as policy instruments.

The Bank of Korea predicts the supply of reserves, compares it with the demand for reserves, and calculates the amount of reserve surplus or deficit. If a deficit is expected, the Bank of Korea will inject liquidity, and if a surplus is expected, it will absorb liquidity. In this way, it conducts open market operations so that call rates do not deviate significantly from the Base Rate. The main instruments of open market operations include the issuance of Monetary Stabilisation Bonds (MSBs), transactions of securities, and deposits with the Monetary Stabilisation Account (MSA). MSBs have relatively long maturities. Thus, they are used as a major structural adjustment tool with long-lasting policy effects. Securities transactions are used to supply or withdraw funds by buying or selling government and public bonds. Eligible securities are confined to government bonds, government-guaranteed bonds, MSBs, and mortgage backed securities (MBSs) issued by the Korea Housing-Finance Corporation. However, if necessary, certain bonds specified by the Monetary Policy Board can be included. While securities transactions consist of outright transactions and RP transactions, most of them are RP transactions. The longest RP maturity is 91 days, but the majority of RP transactions involve seven-day RPs. The MSA, a term-based deposit facility, is one of the open market operation instruments that the Bank of Korea uses to control short-term liquidity.

Currently, the lending and deposit facilities at the Bank of Korea that are available to financial institutions consist of Liquidity Adjustment Loans and Deposits, the Bank Intermediated Lending Support Facility, Intraday Overdrafts, and Special Loans. Liquidity Adjustment Loans and Deposits, which are standing facilities, constrain excessive volatility of money market interest rates by enabling financial institutions to borrow shortage funds from the central bank or to deposit surplus funds at an interest rate level within a certain margin above or below the Base Rate. Interest rates applied to those facilities are the Bank of Korea Base Rate±100bp. Liquidity Adjustment Loans and Deposits carry overnight maturities. The Bank Intermediated Lending Support Facility is a lending system operated by the Bank of Korea to support financial institutions' lending to SMEs. The Bank of Korea provides low-interest rate funds, within certain ceilings, to financial institutions based on their performance in extending loans to SMEs. The interest rates for these programs are usually lower than the Base Rate and their maturities are one month. Intraday Overdrafts are facilities to extend financial support to banks experiencing transient shortages of settlement funds in the course of a day. They should be redeemed before the close of business that day. Special loans are those that the Bank of Korea extends as the lender of last resort in order to secure financial market stability, after obtaining special approval from the Monetary Policy Board. Their rates and maturities are determined in each case.

With regard to the reserve requirement system, the Bank of Korea Act stipulates that financial institutions hold a certain ratio of their liabilities subject to reserve requirements in their accounts with the central bank. The reserve requirement ratio on time deposits, time installment deposits, mutual installment savings for non-payment accounts, installments for home buying, and CDs is 2%, and that on other deposits is 7%. The reserve calculation period is from the first day to the last day of every month, and the reserve maintenance period is from the Thursday of the second week of the following month to the Wednesday of the second week of the month after the following month. In principle, no interest payments are made on reserve deposits with the central bank. However, if necessary, reserve deposits can be remunerated, as determined by the Monetary Policy Board.