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FIn24 user Dugald Cloete, who works in South Korea, shares his experiences and thoughts on the recent unprecedented theft of information from at least 20 million people in South Korea; it was the country's largest-ever leak of private financial data and involved three credit card companies.
He writes:
Hi, hope all is well at Fin24.
I use two banks (NH and KEB) here in South Korea and I have no credit services with either.
Acquiring credit services as a foreigner is not the lightest of challenges. That said, it's not impossible either.
Nonetheless, life without a credit card in Korea remains easy, since there isn't much you can't do without one.
I'm fortunate in that the leak hasn't affected me.
Firstly, KEB (Korea Exchange Bank, which is different to Kookmin Bank i e KB) wasn't involved in the leak.
Secondly, I don't have an account with NH Card, the credit card brother to NH Bank.
Lost in translation
Equate this to the following example: "Credit Card Company A" leaked the information, not "Bank B". If one therefore has no credit card account with "Credit Card Company A", there's no linked "Bank B" information to disseminate.
I can't, however, speak for their IT infrastructure and network relationship. Seeing as NH Card and NH Bank are under the same umbrella, it is possible that their systems might talk to each other.
If the information of those NH Bank clients without NH Card accounts has been compromised, I have not yet heard anything.
NH hasn't gotten around to writing any notifications regarding this matter in English.
I have yet to use my feeble Korean to find out whether my conjecture holds true, as that is currently all this is, conjecture based on my knowledge, albeit limited by any losses in translation, of the systems here and what I've read online.
The Korea Times quoted an FSS official as saying they don't have enough time to take care of foreigners.
Similar sentiments were echoed by the three card companies implicated in the info leak.
Naturally, this has irritated a few foreigners, especially those whose sensitivities need little additional agitation to climb onto a soapbox.
This might have been me in my early months here. Since then, I have come to appreciate Koreans' candour in certain matters.
I trust fully that they are hard at work behind the scenes to address the issue. Koreans undoubtedly have a strong work ethic.
Doing things differently
They seemingly do things differently to what those partial to a Western orientation are accustomed to.
Now that their honour is at stake, I'd imagine they are truly grinding 24/7 to lay this matter to rest.
One could get caught up in saying that some approaches, like posting a written notice or video statement online, requires little to no time.
When it comes to English, I have found that many highly ranked Koreans, societally speaking, refuse to speak English, despite a decent grasp of the language.
Think along the lines of the adage "if you're going to do something, do it right".
I'm afraid to imagine the goings-on behind closed doors, and how much time Koreans would take to merely draft a statement concerning the current quagmire, much less issue it.
I fear it would take up a good amount of time, writing it in Korean, re-writing it a few more times in Korean, handing it off to a team of translators, the translators returning it with a markedly different English version, each not quite perfect, as judged (among others) by the very author who opted not to translate the piece himself.
Apparent redundance at its finest. They would feel that all this amount of time could be better spent tackling the matter at hand rather than allaying fears of a foreigner who wouldn't understand what they are trying to say in the first place, as is often their experience.
- Fin24
Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyFin24 have been independently written by members of the Fin24 community. The views of users published on Fin24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent those of Fin24.
He writes:
Hi, hope all is well at Fin24.
I use two banks (NH and KEB) here in South Korea and I have no credit services with either.
Acquiring credit services as a foreigner is not the lightest of challenges. That said, it's not impossible either.
Nonetheless, life without a credit card in Korea remains easy, since there isn't much you can't do without one.
I'm fortunate in that the leak hasn't affected me.
Firstly, KEB (Korea Exchange Bank, which is different to Kookmin Bank i e KB) wasn't involved in the leak.
Secondly, I don't have an account with NH Card, the credit card brother to NH Bank.
Lost in translation
Equate this to the following example: "Credit Card Company A" leaked the information, not "Bank B". If one therefore has no credit card account with "Credit Card Company A", there's no linked "Bank B" information to disseminate.
I can't, however, speak for their IT infrastructure and network relationship. Seeing as NH Card and NH Bank are under the same umbrella, it is possible that their systems might talk to each other.
If the information of those NH Bank clients without NH Card accounts has been compromised, I have not yet heard anything.
NH hasn't gotten around to writing any notifications regarding this matter in English.
I have yet to use my feeble Korean to find out whether my conjecture holds true, as that is currently all this is, conjecture based on my knowledge, albeit limited by any losses in translation, of the systems here and what I've read online.
The Korea Times quoted an FSS official as saying they don't have enough time to take care of foreigners.
Similar sentiments were echoed by the three card companies implicated in the info leak.
Naturally, this has irritated a few foreigners, especially those whose sensitivities need little additional agitation to climb onto a soapbox.
This might have been me in my early months here. Since then, I have come to appreciate Koreans' candour in certain matters.
I trust fully that they are hard at work behind the scenes to address the issue. Koreans undoubtedly have a strong work ethic.
Doing things differently
They seemingly do things differently to what those partial to a Western orientation are accustomed to.
Now that their honour is at stake, I'd imagine they are truly grinding 24/7 to lay this matter to rest.
One could get caught up in saying that some approaches, like posting a written notice or video statement online, requires little to no time.
When it comes to English, I have found that many highly ranked Koreans, societally speaking, refuse to speak English, despite a decent grasp of the language.
Think along the lines of the adage "if you're going to do something, do it right".
I'm afraid to imagine the goings-on behind closed doors, and how much time Koreans would take to merely draft a statement concerning the current quagmire, much less issue it.
I fear it would take up a good amount of time, writing it in Korean, re-writing it a few more times in Korean, handing it off to a team of translators, the translators returning it with a markedly different English version, each not quite perfect, as judged (among others) by the very author who opted not to translate the piece himself.
Apparent redundance at its finest. They would feel that all this amount of time could be better spent tackling the matter at hand rather than allaying fears of a foreigner who wouldn't understand what they are trying to say in the first place, as is often their experience.
- Fin24
Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyFin24 have been independently written by members of the Fin24 community. The views of users published on Fin24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent those of Fin24.
