William Ryback has become the first “foreign special adviser” to the Financial Supervisory Service.
With 40 years of experience in banking supervision, the newly appointed foreign official noted that he will help Korea’s voices on global financial issues to be heard at international arenas and boost the market’s confidence in providing resolutions and sharing those views with other global players.
Now the big question is, will he be able to convince the FSS to adapt a more market oriented and foreign investor friendly approach? or will he simply become a figurehead, whose voice will be drowned out by the FSS bureaucracy?
20 Comments
Chalk up one vote for “figurehead”. But “figurehead” sounds a bit grandiose. “Token-foreigner-who-we-hope-will-give-us-a-semblence-of-credibility-and-we-can-later-hide-behind” seems more accurate.
Another cigar store white man who will be shucking and jiving out in front to fool the world that Korea is playing y the same rules as everyone else.
You guys are so f*%king cynical it’s pathetic. You bitch and moan about every bad thing that the country does, then when they try to do something good, you write it up like it’s a goddamn conspiracy.
Do you think he was brought here to hoodwink foreign investors? Ridiculous.
This is a senior guy who is the equivalent of a policy wonk. He is here to advise on implementation of a series of complex financial regulations that can help Korea comply with global standards. There will be negotiation about how those standards and Korea’s existing regulations are integrated. But that is completely natural, this is political. As for Sperwer’s comment above about “playing by the same rules,” that’s just silly because no country plays by the rules. If the US played by the rules, to the letter, they would have allowed the Port Authority to be sold to Dubai. My point is that in every case there is an exception. For the US, it is national security. For the Koreans, it is economic security. (is there a difference? you decide)
Also keep in mind that this man has no need to come here. True, they will pay him well.But he has clearly stated that this is a personal challenge for him and that he is intrigued by it. Just take that at face value. Then, just for once, also buy in to the notion that some people in Korea do want to open up and “play by the rules” and that maybe, just maybe, that’s why they brought this guy in. Not to dance him around foreign investors but to “advise” about something that very few people (Korean or otherwise) know anything about.
oh, and by the way. The hiring happened weeks ago. This is basically old news.
I predict that this guy will have about as much success in effecting any sort of meaningful reform in Korea as the feckless American advisers who served at the court of Gojong in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The problem isn’t necessarily one of conspiracy (although anyone who doesn’t comprehend the extent to which even the honest reformers want to spin the PR is hopelessly naive) but of an institution order that is profoundly resistant to change, particularly change that is perceived as threatening to the economic hegemony of existing Korean elites.
Well, if it makes you feel any better, I would say the exact same thing if this hiring took place in China or Thailand.
And you are right, he has no need to come here. Forty years experience to me reads: “approaching retirement age and want to get one last big paycheck”.
He will be able to liaise with foreign finance and asset management firms in Korea and take their concerns back to the FSS. Not sure how much difference he can make..but it’s a start.
Such laws as the capital gains tax on offshore fund products but not onshore products (even if they invest offshore) favour do Korean businesses and make it harder for foreign players to enter the market. This is one such example.
I’m going to be cautiously optimistic about Mr. Ryback for now. I’m certainly going to be watching him with interest for the next several months. So far there has been no indication exactly what his role will be and exactly what authority he will have - although it’s clear that he is not being brought in to take over and run the FSS his way.
My worry is that he’ll end up like the big-4 American accounting firms in Korea, which do little more than lend their credible names to poor-quality financial reports, always hiding behind disclaimers that these statements have been prepared “according to Korean GAAP”. I suppose they may have come to Korea long ago with the idea that their influence would gradually lead to more transparency and credibility in financial reporting, but years later, we have…exactly what Sperwer wrote in #2.
An important difference is that those local branches are 100% Korean-staffed, unless there’s been some new hiring I’m not aware of. In the case of Ryback, this will be the first time that a foreigner is going to see this far into Korea’s financial infrastructure. Will he talk? Blow the whistle? Speak his mind? Or will he say to himself “Wow, this is a big project. I’d better keep my head down and try to change the system from within. Maybe I’ll start with a visit to PwC and see what advice they have for me.”
I’d like to see him start with 2 things: (1) Please explain and rationalize what the dif is between the FSS and the FSC, why there are two organizations that seem to do the same thing, and (2) Audit. I know Korea has already set a schedule for implementing IFRS for companies above a certain size ($2bil?), which was great news. But I’d really like to start seeing audit reports that actually answer more questions than they raise.
Linkd, those firms are subject to review by acountants from partner-firms in other countries, are they not? Are you advocating holding the accounting firms to task for having followed the accounting practices of the country?
Whatever other motivations may have brought them to Korea, these firms came here to make money. Samjong’s relationship with KPMG is unique throughout its organization in that it picked up the franchise and kept its name its name on the letterhead. I’d guess that Samil’s situation may also be similarly unique within PwC. The reason for those firm’s having done so was simply that it was profit to do so, wouldn’t you agree?
It should read ‘…that it was profitable to do so…’ - sorry.
Yes, I totally agree. Like Hollywood stars let their images be used here to sell ice cream, whiskey and clothes, so long as those images are used only in Korea. A purely financial arrangement.
I have personal frustrations here, too, since I’ve “written” many of big Korean biz’s annual reports. But I have no authority to tell them what they have to disclose, and what is ultimately published is always sterilized by the client. I still get paid, but I’d like the final product to be better. My hope is simply that Mr. Ryback will find (to the surprise of many) that he actually HAS some authority, and then actually uses it.
I remember meeting a senior foreign who had been parachuted in at one of those firms a few years back. He gave me his biz card and then felt obligated for some reason to explain the meaning of “secondment.” In this case, it meant if there was a fuckup and someone’s ass got sued, he and his partners back in the New World didn’t have to run to Mexico.
The words “cautiously optimistic” were used above. That’s my feeling. Sperwer’s “hopelessly naive” is a bit harsh but I take his point. Everyone knows what goes on around here. I would go so far as to say that his contract allows for a very generous amount of time outside of country. I view him more like a director on a board than someone who is doing day-to-day stuff.
Robert B. Laughlin recalled, the Korean delegation told him,
“This is a chance to make an impact. It’ll be easy.
You’ll just go there and be yourself.”
Ryu Keun-chan stated that cultural issues was a problem.
Dr. Laughlin, he says, “could not communicate his ideas to
students and professors.”
Dr. Laughlin said “I find that when Koreans bring up those subjects
they’re mostly trying to deflect the conversation away from the
issues they really care about — money and job security — because
talking about them in public is taboo.”
Good luck Mr.Ryback, your no longer in Hong Kong.
you assume that laughlin failed because korea is korea. laughlin failed because laughlin is a jerk. he basically came here, called everyone idiots, and then told them how to fix themselves.
he’ll never be admin at stanford either.
Focus should be put on China now. It’s easier to do business there anyway.
This seems to be part of a bigger effort by the FSS to better follow international standards and, hopefully, become less of a politically driven organization.
http://tinyurl.com/2zjany
Of course, they seem to be doing FAR better than Korea’s Fair Trade Commission:
http://tinyurl.com/298499
For those of you who don’t read Korea, the basic gist is:
“Laughlin failed because he was a jerk.” That is certainly true. But at the same time Korea deserved him. They “gild the turd” here so often it is pathetic. Any number of people at this blog could have done a better job than him, but because he was a NL (you get your own parking space for that) Koreans wanted him. 용두사미.
#17: You mean possessing a Nobel doesn’t qualify you to run an institution of higher learning? Say it ain’t so!
Wedgie, Sorry, man. All those years gone by in the Korean classroom have given me a skill for the redundant obvious.
PS: Wouldn’t the world be a beautiful place if a Nobel Peace Prize (Jimmy, Yessir, Albagore - did Hitler get one or did he die too soon (a mere pup of 56)?) were required for teaching Ethics 101?
a bit like step-in-fetch, eh?
spot on, although, yes the future is unwritten maybe this cracker will be “the one”—it is possible that this could be a sign of change.
but, seriously … some of the commenters here sound like they smoked a bowl.
Korea has its way of doing things. There is a lot of talk about changes, but few of them have a chance of being implemented while the old guard is in control of everything.