'Would you quit if relocated?' Financial institutions rattle with relocation fears

Anxiety is spreading through South Korea's financial regulatory community as the prospect of a government-ordered relocation out of Seoul grows more likely — with one union already polling its members on whether they would quit if forced to move.

According to financial industry sources Thursday, the government is expected to announce as early as next Wednesday its plans for relocating central government ministries and public institutions. Officials in government circles say the Financial Services Commission, currently housed at Government Complex Seoul, and the Financial Supervisory Service, based in Yeouido, are both likely candidates for relocation, along with state-owned lenders including Korea Development Bank, Export-Import Bank of Korea and Industrial Bank of Korea.

Amid the uncertainty, the FSS union launched a survey Tuesday covering all staff from the FSS governor down, asking whether employees would leave if headquarters moved out of Seoul and whether keeping the Seoul office was justified. As of 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, about 1,200 employees had responded. The union is also separately gauging the intentions of staff who hold professional licenses such as bar qualifications or certified public accountant credentials. Results are set to be released Friday. "Of course there are colleagues who are thinking about resigning," one FSS employee said. "If you hold a professional license as a lawyer or accountant, you might well feel there is no reason to stay if the workplace is no longer in Seoul."

The mood at state-owned banks is much the same. The unions of Korea Development Bank, Export-Import Bank of Korea and Industrial Bank of Korea held a joint rally Aug. 11 outside Korea Development Bank's Yeouido headquarters to protest the relocation push and denounce the government. The Korea Development Bank union has also recently demanded that Chairman Park Sang-jin publicly declare his opposition to the move.

Staff at the FSC are also visibly unsettled. Unlike other public institutions, the FSC has neither a civil servant union nor a workplace council, leaving employees with no formal channel for open protest — but they have been venting through private online communities. "Some mid-level staff started preparing to change jobs last year when talk of dismantling the financial authorities first surfaced," one employee said. "Junior officials and those who recently transferred in seem likely to look at other paths, like law school." A financial authority official warned that the timeline being floated was far too compressed. "Looking at past cases, even after a ministry relocation is decided, staff are given at least one to two years to prepare before the actual move," the official said. "But lately we keep hearing things like 'relocating this fall' or 'moving in early next year.' You need to give people at minimum enough time to arrange a move or make other plans."

Data from previous relocations suggest the concerns are well-founded. A National Assembly Budget Office report on the outcomes of the first round of public institution relocations found that the average number of resignations at the 97 institutions that moved between 2010 and 2025 rose from 38 to 60 per institution. The pre-relocation resignation rate climbed from 2.66 percent to 3.11 percent. The office recommended that "measures to manage resignation rates should be put in place when pursuing the second round of public institution relocations."