Wall Street turns on Korean banks

Stocks are down, based both on the banks putting aside more money for sour loans, and on the perception that Korean banks take more risks with their loan portfolios. As reported by the Business Journal, analysts began downgrading the top five Koreatown banks, after the largest, Hanmi, reported a drop in earnings for the first two quarters of the year. “It’s humbling,” said Joanne Kim, executive vice president and chief lending officer at Wilshire State Bank. “For the past few years, we didn’t know any ‘down’ in our business.” One obvious problem: a slowdown in commercial real estate deals that for several years had been the Korean banks' bread and butter. Of course, that’s when interest rates were super low. “This is just the beginning,” Daniel Kim, chief financial officer of Saehan Bancorp., told the paper. “Over the last five years, we’ve seen rising rent, interest up by 400 basis points and soaring gas prices. People are having a hard time running businesses.”