Korean banking needs its crisis

Some scandals titillate. Others can shock or make you laugh. But a few resonate because they reflect a deeper unease – a feeling that something, somewhere, isn’t quite right. 

So it is with Woori Bank, which was rocked in October by claims it bought financial favours by offering jobs to the children of powerful public officials. Since then South Korea’s second-largest lender by assets has lost its chief executive, been castigated in the public realm and raided by federal prosecutors.