When initially formulating the risk-based premium system, CDIC referred to the experience of advanced countries, the findings of questionnaire surveys, and inputs from scholars and experts. To ensure that the risk-based premium system was acceptable to the banking industry in its initial stage, and that the difference between the highest and lowest rates would not be excessively large. It was therefore adopted as a guiding principle that premium rates would be raised in phases. Accordingly, the premium rates for covered deposits were initially set at three tiers of 0.015%, 0.0175%, and 0.02%. In order to accelerate the accumulation of the deposit insurance payout special reserves, CDIC, effective from January 2000, adjusted the premium rates upward to 0.05%, 0.055%, and 0.06%, respectively, increasing the successive rate difference from 0.0025% to 0.005%. However, as scholars, experts and practitioners repeatedly raised concerns that a three-tiered system of risked-based premium rate with only a 0.005% successive rate difference could not adequately reflect the operational risks of insured institutions, CDIC in July 2007 expanded the system from three tiers to five tiers and increased the successive rate difference from 0.005% to 0.01%.
The 0.01% successive rate difference under the risk-based premium system implemented in July 2007 was still considered small compared to other countries such as the United States, Canada, Singapore, and Malaysia which had also adopted risk-based premium systems. In addition, scholars and experts frequently suggested expanding the difference between successive rates. In order to more appropriately reflect differences in operational risks of insured institutions, as well as to guide them in reducing such risks, CDIC expanded the successive rate differences from 0.01% to 0.01%, 0.02%, 0.03%, and 0.04% in deliberations on the plan to adjust the deposit insurance premiums for banks and credit cooperatives in 2010.
Since the implementation of the five-tiered system of risk-based premium rates, improvements in the financial condition of insured institutions have led to more than 80% of them being concentrated in Tier 1, the lowest premium rate category. This concentration has undermined the effectiveness of the risk-based premium system to fully achieve its intended effect.
To address this issue, CDIC commissioned an external study in June 2023. Based on the study’s findings, the Corporation revised the risk-based premium system by expanding the two key risk indicators—Capital Adequacy Ratio and Composite Score—from three tiers to four tiers. As a result, the risk matrix expanded from 3x3 to 4x4, increasing the number of risk groups from 9 to 16, and the premium rate structure was adjusted from a five-tiered to a seven-tiered system.
Under the new seven-tiered system of risk-based premium rates, the concentration of insured institutions in the previous Tier 1 has been alleviated, as these institutions are now more evenly distributed across Tiers 1 through 3. This adjustment enables a more appropriate reflection of the differences in risk profiles among insured institutions and enhances the risk differentiation effect. Additionally, a new lower premium rate (Tier 1) has been introduced to incentivize institutions to further reduce their risk exposures in order to qualify for the lowest rate.
Last updated 2026/1/1