A Minor with 1 Billion Won in a Bank Account? ... 2,595 'Golden-Spoon' Minors with More Than 100 Million Won in Deposits and Savings

[Financial News] More than 50 minors with over 1 billion won in their bank accounts have been identified at domestic banks alone.

According to Yonhap News Agency on the 5th, data that Park Sung-hoon, a People Power Party lawmaker on the National Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee, received from the Korea Federation of Banks (KFB) showed that the deposits and savings balances of minors aged 18 or younger at 19 domestic deposit banks totaled 9.7413 trillion won as of the end of July this year. The figure includes transaction deposits, time deposits and installment savings, and was up 1.4548 trillion won, or 17.6%, from 8.2865 trillion won at the end of 2022.
During the same period, the number of deposit and savings accounts held by minors increased 36.0%, or 2,379,114 accounts, from 6,615,941 to 8,995,055.
Looking at each minor’s balance after combining deposits and savings held across multiple accounts, 2,595 minors had at least 100 million won as of the end of July. Of these, 2,419 had between 100 million won and less than 500 million won, 124 had between 500 million won and less than 1 billion won, and 52 had at least 1 billion won.
The number of minors with at least 1 billion won rose by 10 from 42 at the end of last year, while the number of customers with at least 100 million won increased by 12 from 2,583 during the same period.
By bank, Hana Bank had the largest number of minors with at least 100 million won, at 566. It was followed by KB Kookmin Bank with 540, Shinhan Bank with 437, Woori Bank with 422 and NH NongHyup Bank with 172.
The number of minors with at least 1 billion won stood at 14 at Hana Bank and 12 at Shinhan Bank. However, these figures are simple sums of the bank-by-bank counts, so minors who used multiple banks may have been counted more than once.
The total balance in accounts held in the names of minors with at least 100 million won was approximately 514 billion won as of the end of July. Of this amount, accounts with between 500 million won and less than 1 billion won held approximately 63.9 billion won, while accounts with at least 1 billion won held approximately 67.2 billion won.
By age group, deposits and savings held in the names of children aged 0 to 5 totaled 2.1399 trillion won, accounting for 22.0% of all deposits and savings held by minors. This age group held 1,123,996 accounts.
The 6-to-12 age group had the largest balance at 3.5864 trillion won, followed by those aged 16 to 18 with 2.1463 trillion won and those aged 13 to 15 with 1.8688 trillion won.

However, most minors had only small balances in deposits and savings. The number of minors with balances below 1 million won was 5,602,273, accounting for 77.5% of the 7,227,938 minors who held deposits and savings.
Park said, "There is no need to take issue with legitimate gifts or asset building themselves, but we need to closely examine whether there are any blind spots in the source of funds or gift reporting as large financial assets are transferred to minors."
[email protected] Kim Su-yeon Reporter