Nearly 100,000 South Koreans Enter Debt Restructuring in First Half

Nearly 100,000 South Koreans entered debt restructuring in the first half of the year as high interest rates and elevated prices strained borrowers' ability to repay.

Data submitted by the Credit Counseling and Recovery Service to the office of People Power Party lawmaker Park Seong-hoon showed that 97,199 people finalized one of three adjustment programs. The affected debt totaled 5.7426 trillion won. Individual borrowers accounted for 80,544 cases involving 4.7193 trillion won, while self-employed borrowers accounted for 12,155 cases involving 1.0233 trillion won.

The programs cover different stages of delinquency. Rapid debt adjustment applies when payments are overdue by 30 days or less. Pre-workout arrangements cover 31 to 89 days, while personal workouts apply after at least 90 days of delinquency.

Rapid adjustments have risen particularly sharply. The number of finalized cases increased from 16,766 in 2022 to 53,551 last year. The first half of this year added 27,003 cases. Older borrowers recorded a steep increase: cases among people in their 70s and older rose from 239 in 2022 to 1,684 last year, while cases among those in their 60s rose from 1,015 to 5,339. Borrowers aged 60 and above made up 14.1 percent of rapid-adjustment cases in the first half of the year.

Long-term personal workout cases also reached 55,213 in the first half. The second quarter recorded 30,054 cases, the highest quarterly figure in five years. Across all debt-adjustment programs, finalized cases rose from 121,095 in 2022 to 189,062 last year, a 56.1 percent increase in three years.