Thanks to our strong international credit standing we were fortunate enough to maintain stability in Korean markets overall, but we still had to remain vigilant. Looking at the real economy, the rate of growth did not deviate far from its potential level, but employment remained sluggish and economic agents’ sentiments weakened.
Financial services such as savings products, credit and loans, payment and money transfer services, insurance, and many others, provide poor people with greater capacity to stabilise and even increase their incomes, build assets and cope with shocks. These financial products have proven to be great tools that mitigate the effects of low, irregular and unreliable incomes which keep many people below the poverty line.