Twenty-Six Private Lending Companies Violate Total Asset Limits... Business Suspensions and Registration Cancellations

FSC-Registered Private Lending Firms Increase by 10%

“Stronger Oversight Needed”

Twenty-six private lending companies registered with the Financial Services Commission have been caught violating the total asset limit by financial authorities. Several companies were also found to have failed to meet their business reporting obligations or could not even be verified at their registered addresses. As the number of registered private lending companies has been rising recently, calls have emerged to strengthen management and oversight.

According to data submitted by the Financial Supervisory Service to the office of Assemblyman Park Sunghoon of the Public Administration and Security Committee on October 5, last year’s inspection of FSC-registered private lending companies revealed that 26 firms had breached the total asset cap regulation. These companies violated the rules that limit total assets to a certain multiple of their equity capital. Some of the violators received severe penalties, including the suspension of all business activities.

Seventeen companies that violated their business reporting obligations were sanctioned with fines or official warnings. Four companies—Goldrich Consulting Lending, Asset Management K Lending, Gookmin AMC Financial Lending, and JLK Partners Financial Lending—were found to be “ghost companies,” whose addresses could not be confirmed, and had their registration canceled.

The increase in the number of detected violations last year was due to additional checks on companies that failed to submit business reports after amendments to the Loan Business Act went into effect in July 2025. The number of inspections carried out by the FSS last year was more than six times higher than the previous year. The annual number of inspections stood at 12 in 2022, 31 in 2023, 11 in 2024, and 68 last year. As of July this year, there had been 11 inspections.

The number of FSC-registered private lending companies also showed an upward trend. Last year, the figure reached 1,035, an increase of 95 companies (10.1%) compared to the previous year’s 940. In contrast, private lending companies registered with local governments declined to 6,661 last year, down by 1,175 (15.0%) from 7,836 in the previous year.

New market entries have also increased. The number of new FSC-registered private lending companies rose from 145 in 2024 to 190 last year. Additionally, 50 companies transferred their registration from local government oversight to FSC oversight last year.

According to materials submitted by the FSS, there were officially zero registration cancellations for FSC-registered private lending companies each year from 2022 to last year. However, this figure is based on the number of registrations in each respective year, so there may be discrepancies due to differences in the basis and timing of sanctions or cancellations resulting from inspections.

Assemblyman Park stated, “Private lending companies, which handle urgent funds for ordinary citizens, have been caught en masse for exceeding total asset limits, failing reporting obligations, and in some cases, could not even be located at their registered addresses. This reveals critical gaps in regulatory oversight. As private lending companies expand, if supervision does not keep pace, the burden will ultimately fall on ordinary citizens. Therefore, financial authorities should conduct regular inspections and strengthen post-supervision.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.