SEOUL, South Korea-- South Korea's credit unions saw their combined net profit drop 15.2% in 2019 from a year earlier due to increased operating costs, according to newly released data.
The combined net profit of the 2,228 credit unions in the country—which operate on a different model from those in much of the rest of the world––including the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation known as Nonghyup, stood at 2.17 trillion won (US$1.7 billion) in 2019, down 389.6 billion won from 2018, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) reported.
Nonghyup's business portfolio ranges from hypermarts and home shopping to banks and brokerages.
The FSS said the decline in net profit was also due to sluggish sales of agricultural products and a decline in their prices.
As of the end of last year, the average delinquency rate of loans extended by the credit unions came to 1.71%, up 0.39 percentage point from a year earlier.
The total assets of the credit unions rose 7.9% on-year to 546.1 trillion won in 2019, according to the data.