Foreigner Complains that Korean Bank Discriminated Against Them Due to Long Name
Why doesn’t this person just take their business to another bank instead of expecting the bank to completely upgrade their software to accommodate them:
A local bank’s refusal to open an account for a foreigner with a long name is discriminatory, South Korea’s human rights watchdog said Monday.
The move came 13 months after a foreigner filed a petition with the National Human Rights Commission of Korea for being rejected by the bank to open a bank account for a self-employed business on the grounds of a long name.
The bank said its computing system allows up to 20 characters for the names of a client and his or her shop to open a business account, regardless of the nationality of a client.
The bank said it is possible to improve its system to ensure a client’s name can exceed 20 characters, but it is considering upgrading the system when it builds a next-generation computing system due to costs.
The rights commission said it is difficult to say that the bank directly discriminated against the client for being a foreigner, but the bank’s refusal constitutes “indirect discrimination” if it caused a great disadvantage to a certain group of people and an individual.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but the article says their were five other major South Korean banks with the software to handle the long name.
Lawfare is a cheap way to make money.
If Korea wants to be “global” (whatever that really means), it’s going to need to stop being too Korea-centric in its thinking. Name blanks need to be foreigner-friendly. The expat community in Korea is—what—2% of the total population now, which is a lot of people, and some foreigners have super-long names (I once had a Thai student with the surname “Charupaisankit”). Korean institutions (not just banks) need to learn how to handle that instead of trying to funnel everything through a Korean filter (“Sorry, your name is just too long!”). We can’t all have short names, and switching banks merely because of a name issue is a lame reason to switch banks.
(Luckily for me, my bank, Shinhan, has no problems with this issue.)
And let me clarify: I’m not implying, more widely, that all Korean institutions need to provide comprehensive foreigner-oriented services like what you can find at an American DMV, where paper forms come in 20 different languages. I actually think long-term expats need to do their part, as well, by learning Korean—at least enough Korean to handle something as basic as taking a trip to the bank without bringing a Korean-speaking husband/wife or boy-/girlfriend. One thing I never understand is the foreigner who wants to live and work in Korea but has no curiosity about the language or deeper aspects of the culture. For such people, I guess it’s just about the money, and maybe about the “experience” of living in an “exotic” country. I’m not a Korea-weeaboo, but I do think foreigners should show their appreciation to the country that feeds them, pays them, and gives them a roof over their heads by at least learning some of the language and showing some genuine curiosity about the culture. I expect no less of long-term expats living in America.
Well-said Kevin.
Luckily I don’t have that problem at all. My name is Chink Man.
Neither do I since my name is China boy 😀
Well, Chink Man and China boy, at least you know your place.
Now act accordingly.
at least you know your place.
Now act accordingly.
And they say those on the right are humorous.
Go figure.
CH, at least you got the bots to own up.
setnaffa loves to say that those who are on the left side of the political spectrum have no sense of humor, which implies that those right wingers have lots of sense of humor.
So it is surprising to see why he doesn’t have the sense of humor to catch KM’s and KP’s sarcasm.
Now back to the main subject.
Kevin Kim is correct in saying that Korean institutions need to move away from their Korean centric ways.
But to be fair, these institutions have made a lot of strides to accomodate foreigners during the past two to three decades.
I can remember a time when a foreigner needed to take along a Korean as a guarantor if he/she needed to subscribe to a mobile phone service, open a bank account, or make a credit card.
Now, those application sheets have space to jot down the foreigner’s residence number issued by the government, and they don’t need to bring along a Korean guarantor, just their ID card issued by Korean immigration.