ABSTRACT
The Korean government moved to liberalise the fi nancial system as an important way to reorient its overall developmental strategy in the wake of the balance-of-payments and fi scal crises of the early 1980s. While the whole process of fi nancial reform in Korea can generally be characterised as cautious and gradual, the approaches to, and sequencing of, the reform displayed their own peculiarities. Korea’s distinctive approach to fi nancial reform also led to varied progress in the major areas of liberalisation. Rapid progress was made in the development of the non-bank fi nancial sector and deregulation of entry barriers, whereas interest rate deregulation, policy loan reduction and capital decontrol ran a slow, erratic and selective course.
