The scale of financial incidents, including fraud, embezzlement, and breach of trust, has surpassed 1 trillion won over the past six years. In particular, the incident amount recorded an all-time high last year, and accidents continue to occur at a rate of roughly once every two days this year, prompting calls for an urgent strengthening of internal controls within the financial sector.

According to data submitted by the Financial Supervisory Service and obtained by Rep. Kang Min-kook of the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee on the 25th, a total of 609 financial incidents occurred from 2020 to April of this year, with the total incident amount tallying at 1.24193 trillion won.

The incident amount by year showed an upward trend, starting at 172.45 million won (76 cases) in 2020, followed by 73.193 billion won (60 cases) in 2021, 149.692 billion won (61 cases) in 2022, 142.32 billion won (62 cases) in 2023, 353.671 billion won (112 cases) in 2024, and 431.897 billion won (188 cases) last year. With the exception of 2023, the scale of incidents expanded every year, reaching its peak last year. In just the first four months of this year, financial incidents totaling 73.913 billion won (50 cases) have already occurred, continuing at a rate of an average of once every 2.4 days.

By type, financial fraud accounted for the largest share at 505.282 billion won (253 cases), making up 40.7% of the total. This was followed by occupational breach of trust at 291.193 billion won (80 cases), embezzlement and misappropriation at 205.19 billion won (208 cases), and theft and loss at 1.05 billion won (14 cases). In particular, financial fraud surged from 55.8 billion won (32 cases) in 2024 to 331.803 billion won (113 cases) last year. It was found that many of the banking incidents involved the use of forged documents, such as inflating collateral values and using fake lease agreements.

By sector, banks accounted for 769.764 billion won (381 cases), representing 62.0% of the total. This was followed by securities at 262.29 billion won (62 cases), cards at 108.068 billion won (32 cases), savings banks at 81.243 billion won (55 cases), non-life insurance at 11.255 billion won (38 cases), and life insurance at 9.311 billion won (41 cases).

Rep. Kang Min-kook stated, "The fact that the scale of financial incidents has exceeded 1 trillion won over the past six years and recorded an all-time high last year shows that the responsibility structure is not functioning properly." He added, "It is necessary to develop effective supplementary measures, including analyzing the causes of incidents by sector and strengthening the responsibilities of executives."