KLRI : KOREA LEGISLATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE

 

 

Korea Legislation Research Institute (President Kye-Hong Kim) held the 7th Social Value Legislation Forum at KLRI’s Smart Conference Room on August 19 (Thur., 10am) under the theme of Law, System and Policy Improvement for Social Finance. The forum was held virtually with ten experts in various fields and broadcast live through KLRI’s YouTube channel for the public. 

 

With Dae-Hwan Kim (Professor at Seoul City University's Graduate School of Law) as moderator, Jong-Hyun Park (Professor at Gyeongsang National University), Ji-Yeon Jang (Foundation Korea Solidarity Fund), and Dong-Hoon Lee (Attorney at Deoham) spoke on the significance of social finance and recommended direction for its advancement; the need for fostering social investors; the status and direction of the discussion on legislation on social finance. The forum was wrapped up with discussion among panels. 

 

The first speaker of the session Jong-Hyun Park (Gyeongsang National University) spoke that traditional finance focused on incentives in order for individual choices and collective objectives  to be aligned, whereas social finance focuses on internal motivations including objective, value, and ethics, which is what differentiates itself from traditional finance. He continued saying that a pivotal point of the future success of social finance is to create synergy effect between incentives and internal motivations.  

 

The next speaker Ji-Yeon Jang, (Korea Social Value and Solidarity Foundation) introduced the status of social financial fund supply and said that private institutions have been growing in social finance since the 2000s. She spoke that the most basic ways to foster social investors are firstly, institutionalization of brokerage agencies-financial tools, secondly, designation and fostering of wholesale funds, and finally, promotion of self-help funds.

 

Dong-Hoon Lee (Attorney at Deoham) presented on where we are at in the discussion of social finance legislation and key issues, emphasizing the need for legislation on the promotion and utilization of social finance and the need for connecting it with the similar concepts of ESG, CSR, CSV and SRI which have been largely discussed in the established financial market. He also suggested that specific and careful discussions should take place on the rights, obligations and responsibilities of each social financial entity, as financial legislation includes some regulations that directly influence on people’s economic activities.

 

Meanwhile, KLRI is conducting research on social value legislation as it requires legal support for the implementation of government policies and research on legal aspects to realize social value. It seeks a way to provide a ground for legislation of social value in the public sector and, beyond that, to support in incorporating social value in policies for the private sector.