South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) designated 41 heavily indebted business groups for 2025 under enhanced credit risk monitoring, according to a Thursday press release.

The selection, based on the regulation on supervision of banking business, applies to firms with borrowings surpassing 2.4012 trillion won and credit exposure over 1.406 trillion won as of end-2024, the release said.

Total bank credit to enterprises rose 6.9% year-on-year to 2,004.3 trillion won this year, while credit extended to the 41 groups increased 9.7% to 371.8 trillion won. Their total borrowings also rose 10.5% to 708.8 trillion won, it said.