Key points
- Samsung puts $3.8 billion in deposits paying about 4%
- Corporate deposits top 800 trillion won ($603.2B) at five Korean banks
- Household deposits fall as company balances grow
Samsung Electronics (005930) recently placed about 5 trillion won ($3.8B) in Korean bank deposits paying about 4% a year, Hankyung reported on October 26. Most mature within a year.
The move comes as companies build up their bank balances. Corporate deposits at Korea's five biggest banks reached 831.3 trillion won ($626.8B) on October 22, passing 800 trillion won ($603.2B) for the first time. Household deposits at the same banks fell by about 6.2 trillion won ($4.7B) this year.
Why Samsung is parking cash in deposits
Samsung had 92 trillion won ($69.4B) in cash and cash equivalents at the end of June, according to Hankyung. That was before its record third-quarter profit estimate on October 8. The company has been talking with banks more often about where to put its cash, as stock prices fall and interest rates rise.
A time deposit locks money in a bank for a set period at a fixed rate. For a big company, the rate is negotiated with the bank, based on how much is deposited, how long it stays, and what the bank pays to borrow in the bond market.
Rising bank bond yields pushed those rates up. Corporate time deposit rates were in the 2% range in the first quarter and reached about 4% this month, Hankyung said. On October 23, the yield on one-year AAA-rated bank bonds reached 4.02%, up 1.2 percentage points from 2.82% at the end of last year.
Company deposits passed 800 trillion won
The five banks are KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori, and NongHyup. Of the 831.3 trillion won in corporate deposits, 576.2 trillion won ($434.5B) were time deposits on October 22, up about 76 trillion won ($57.3B) this year. More than 52 trillion won ($39.2B) of that came in the second half, a period Hankyung described as a stock market correction.
Hankyung said booms in chips and other advanced industries have pushed companies' spare cash to record levels. Korean non-financial companies recorded a net funds surplus of 67.1 trillion won ($50.6B) in the second quarter, the highest since the Bank of Korea began the series in 2009. That means the financial assets they acquired were larger than the liabilities they took on.
Households have less money to put away
Individual deposits at the same five banks were 848.2 trillion won ($639.5B) on October 22. Individual time deposits rose by only about 2.2 trillion won ($1.7B), even after banks started selling products that pay more than 4%.
Hankyung said much of households' money is tied up in stocks, and higher rates have made their loan payments much heavier. "Individuals are also raising the share of safe assets they hold, but they have less room to invest than before," an official at one of the banks told the paper.
Households used to keep far more in these banks than companies did. At the end of 2022, individual deposits were more than 142 trillion won ($107.1B) larger. On October 22, the difference was about 16.9 trillion won ($12.8B), by our calculations.
Money waiting in brokerage accounts is shrinking too. Investor deposits fell to 89.9 trillion won ($67.8B) on October 23, down about 14.8 trillion won ($11.2B) this month alone. The Kospi closed down 1.46% on Monday, just under 5,500, after its 7.57% fall on October 15.
Meanwhile, a corporate banking official told Hankyung that banks are spreading out when these deposits come due, so too many don't mature at the same time.
Quotes are translated from Korean. Won figures are converted at 1,326.3 won to the dollar, the Naver Finance rate on October 26, 2026.
