Chapter 202: Crack Begins from Within (6)

Heo Sang-gyu pointed at the screen.

“The dollar settlement channel has been blocked. We have to resolve this.”

Kang Do-yun’s lips trembled.

But Heo Sang-gyu paid him no mind.

“The government is watching now as well. This is no longer a stage where we can end it by only watching Daehan’s reaction.”

“T-then what are you saying we should do now?”

“You have to decide.”

Heo Sang-gyu’s voice rang through the conference room.

“Are you going to hold out like this and collapse together? Or are you going to move the lender group now and draw a line?”

The conference room froze.

Kang Do-yun could not answer. And that silence said everything about where this bank was about to roll.

Kang Do-yun moved his lips.

He only had to say one thing. If he said they would convene a lender group meeting, he could at least send a signal that the bank was moving.

Then overseas parties, the government, and the market would see that Woojin Bank was not simply sitting on its hands. But Kang Do-yun’s throat seemed completely blocked, and he could not say anything.

Han Ji-beom’s voice from the call a moment ago came to mind.

That voice tells him to organize things well.

Those words also meant he should keep his mouth shut and stay still.

Kang Do-yun’s gaze wavered.

Heo Sang-gyu and the employees pressed him as if urging him on.

The vice president took one step closer to the bank president and said.

“President Kang, if you delay the decision now, we are finished.”

Kang Do-yun instinctively stepped back.

“No, that is….”

He tried to force a smile.

But the smile only hovered around his lips and looked unnatural.

“We have to think about what kind of signal it will send to the market if we convene the lender group meeting first. We might end up making the fire worse for no reason.”

Suppressed sighs leaked from various places around the conference room.

Making the fire worse?

This was no longer a fire. The ceiling was already collapsing.

Heo Sang-gyu did not try to persuade him with words.

He simply stared at Kang Do-yun in silence.

That gaze tightened around the bank president.

Kang Do-yun could not withstand that gaze.

He swept his palm down his necktie, then suddenly glanced at his watch and began fidgeting.

In the current situation, it was an action with no meaning whatsoever.

Kang Do-yun opened his mouth.

“Organize things first. I will check as well. I also need to ask higher up.”

Heo Sang-gyu’s frustration burst out, and he raised his voice.

“Higher up? Where exactly are you saying you will check right now!”

Kang Do-yun’s gaze shook for an instant.

He had carelessly said what higher up meant.

He could no longer endure it.

“I-I have something to attend to for a moment….”

Instead of answering, he left the conference room in a fluster, like a nervous man fleeing with his tail between his legs. Heo Sang-gyu’s voice came from behind him.

“President Kang, if you leave now… we will not be able to control this anymore.”

Kang Do-yun stopped for a moment. But he said nothing, opened the door, and left.

Only silence remained in the conference room.

Heo Sang-gyu stared at the door, then slowly lowered his head.

After steadying himself through several deep breaths, he spoke calmly.

“If the bank president cannot decide, we will do what we can.”

He looked at Team Leader Jo Chang-seop and gave an order.

“Team Leader Jo. Organize the government email first and send it to me. And for the NY pending list, pull out the items whose settlement deadline is today by the company.”

Jo Chang-seop drew in a breath.

“Vice President, even so, doing this without the bank president’s approval is….”

Heo Sang-gyu cut him off.

“It is already too late. If we stop now, Woojin is finished. I said we do not have time to wait!”

He gritted his teeth and swept his gaze once around the conference room.

The employees gathered here all knew it too.

The bank president was not unable to make a decision; he lacked the courage to make one. And they had no time to wait.

“For now, we switch to emergency response mode.”

Team Leader Jo Chang-seop reflexively asked back.

“Vice President, what are you going to do if this causes a problem?”

“We do not even have time to get approval right now. You know that too.”

Heo Sang-gyu’s voice filled the conference room.

“What we can do is not solve the problem anyway. We have to at least stop the spread. We start with that.”

He turned toward the whiteboard.

Strength entered the fingertips holding the marker. He quickly wrote something down.

Then Heo Sang-gyu set the marker down with a clack and turned around.

“Manager Kim.”

“Yes!”

“Get the pending list from New York. The original as it is, with the timestamps. Do not forget to start with the cases whose deadlines are today by the company.”

“Understood.”

Heo Sang-gyu looked at Team Leader Jo Chang-seop.

“Team Leader Jo, make the Compliance document package and organize the list of requested submissions. If anything is missing, do not write it as a guess. If we do not know, write that we do not know.”

“Understood.”

From one side of the conference room, someone muttered in a low voice.

“But when morning comes, is this not really going to become chaos?”

Heo Sang-gyu did not answer. Instead, he checked the watch on his wrist.

5:12 a.m.

It was still a time when the market and companies remained quiet.

But Woojin Bank was already awake. And as the sun began to rise, Woojin Bank’s phones exploded.

As 9 a.m. approached, screams first broke out one after another on the call center floor of Woojin Bank headquarters.

“The calls… the calls will not stop! Foreign exchange and overseas settlement inquiries are pouring in all at once.”

The faces of the call center agents wearing headsets turned pale.

The number of customers waiting on the monitors crossed into three digits in an instant.

Notification tones rang like mad. Internal phones flashed without pause, and the agents’ hands moved busily over their keyboards.

The Corporate Finance RM side was the same.

Client company numbers filled the screens one after another.

“Director Park, just a moment. We are checking right now.”

Before the words even ended, another phone rang.

-Our shipment payment is due today. If it does not go out today, the ship cannot leave!

-How can the bank do this? Our goods are tied up at the port and cannot leave. Are you people going to take responsibility for all that damage?

The person in charge swallowed. His throat felt as if it were burning dry.

“First, I will check the remittance hold list for you. The system is currently….”

-What system! Are you still saying that? The money has to go out for the ship to leave.

As soon as he hung up, another number rang. This time, it was a manufacturer.

-Our raw material payment is due today. If this is blocked today, the production line stops. Just stopping the machines on-site will burn through hundreds of millions of won. Are you joking right now?

The person in charge’s face turned white.

There was only one thing he could say.

“Dollar settlements are currently on hold. We are adjusting priorities first. Urgent cases will be handled first….”

-Priorities? Are you telling us to wait right now?

As the chaos broke out, an employee flung open the office door and rushed in. The employee who had run inside shouted while panting for breath.

“Vice President! The card settlement side has blown up too.”

“What?”

“Overseas card approvals are being delayed. Inquiries about delayed settlements are exploding. Companies with frequent business trips in particular are in an uproar because their payments are showing errors.”

Heo Sang-gyu slowly closed his eyes and opened them again.

The situations he had feared were bursting one by one.

It was not that the bank did not have money.

It was that the door through which the money left had been locked.

The moment that door was locked, customers would not leave the bank alone.

Heo Sang-gyu immediately gave an order.

“Send out a notice to all employees.”

Manager Kim Ji-hoon’s hands moved quickly across the keyboard. A moment later, a notice appeared on the companywide messenger.

[Emergency Notice]

Do not respond to inquiries regarding foreign exchange trade settlements except through designated channels.

(Including Corporate Finance and the call center, use unified responses. Individual speculative remarks are prohibited.)

Transfer inquiries immediately to the Global Business Headquarters Emergency Response Desk.

As soon as the notice went up, objections erupted inside the office.

“Vice President, if the person in charge does not answer the phone, the customers will become even more….”

“They will become even angrier.”

Heo Sang-gyu let out a sigh as he spoke.

“Even so, this is the best we can do right now.”

His gaze sank coldly.

“Right now, if we say even one wrong word, it will become an article headline exactly as it is. We have to control it.”

After 10 a.m., another email notification appeared. This time, it was not a request for confirmation. As they were checking the email, the phone rang.

Assistant Manager Shin Ji-su answered first. Then she looked at Heo Sang-gyu and said.

“Vice President, it is the Ministry of Economy and Finance.”

Heo Sang-gyu took the phone.

“This is Vice President Heo Sang-gyu.”

-Vice President Heo, this is the Foreign Exchange System Division of the International Finance Bureau. This is not a matter that can be ended in writing. Come in person this morning and explain.

Before he could even hang up, the ringing continued.

-This is the Financial Supervisory Service. We have been briefed on the situation. How are you handling internal controls?

-The Financial Services Commission has also received a report. We cannot reach the bank president. Vice President, you should come instead.

-This is the Bank of Korea. You should have prepared in advance for a foreign exchange settlement channel being blocked. This could spread into systemic risk.

Heo Sang-gyu clenched his fist tightly.

His nails dug into his palm.

After hanging up, he looked at Jo Chang-seop with a hardened expression.

“The bank president?”

“We cannot reach him.”

Heo Sang-gyu lowered his head briefly, then slowly raised it.

“I suppose I have to go, then. Damn it.”

The curse slipped out on its own.

Throughout the morning, Heo Sang-gyu was summoned from place to place.

Everywhere he went, questions poured down on him.

“Why exactly did this happen?”

“Do you even know which transactions are related to Daehan Group?”

“Why is your response system like this? What is this?”

“Where is the bank president, and why are you here alone?”

There was only so much Heo Sang-gyu could say.

“The U.S. Corres bank has currently notified us of an enhanced review. We are responding according to the document submission request. The pending cases have currently been listed, and we are classifying them by priority to minimize customer damage. We cannot comment on unconfirmed matters.”

What returned to him were cold expressions and sharp remarks.

“You say you are checking, but is it not effectively stopped?”

“If an agent bank cannot control this, can it even be called a bank?”

“This matter is not something that can be resolved at the bank level.”

Heo Sang-gyu did not make excuses. There was nothing he could say except that he was sorry.

Only in the afternoon was he able to hurry back to headquarters. His suit jacket was wrinkled, and his tie had loosened. But his expression alone remained sharp.

As he entered the office, the employees all turned their heads at once. Heo Sang-gyu bit his lip and reluctantly opened his mouth.

“I have taken every curse there is.”

Team Leader Jo approached the vice president and offered comfort.

“You have worked hard, Vice President. There is nothing we can do right now except hold on, is there?”

Hearing those words, the anger he had been suppressing surged up to his throat. Heo Sang-gyu’s voice cracked.

“But where did the person responsible for making things reach this point go?”

Someone cautiously opened their mouth.

“The bank president is….”

Heo Sang-gyu sneered and said.

“He must have run off pretending this has nothing to do with him. As always.”

He swept aside the reports piled on the desk and swallowed his breath.

“I cannot just stand here and watch Woojin Bank fall apart.”

Then he looked at Jo Chang-seop.

“Team Leader Jo.”

“Yes.”

“Is everything I asked you to prepare last time ready?”

“It can be executed immediately.”

“Good!”