The next president must impose stricter controls on loan providers to households, as the situation with non-performing loans and home debts is getting out of control. Korea University Professor Park Young-chul, head of the agenda project said the introduction of a total limit system should be used as a means to control home loans. The National Agenda Team also proposed to strictly strengthen the forward-looking criteria of banks and drastically restructure poorly performing non-banking institutions such as merchant banks and credit unions.

The team proposed the removal of mismanagement in the financial sector that could seriously damage the economy as a central task for the next president. It said the current administration spent the last five years trying to eradicate this in its restructuring, but only removed visible problems revealed by the financial crisis, and failed to remove hidden structural problems and potential non-performing loans that could occur if money is frozen and an economic downturn occurs. In particular it encouraged loans to households to boost spending without providing any safety measures with regards to defaults.

In 1997, household loans by banks totaled W62 trillion, less than half their loans to businesses, but by the end of June 2002 this had tripled to W206 trillion, nearing the level of business loans at W215 trillion. Total household debts, including credit purchases and non-banking loans as of the end of September was W424 trillion, and the number of credit card defaulters had risen to 2.53 million. During the five years of the Kim Dae-jung government household debt increased by W213.1 trillion

The team said the increased debt can be blamed by the government's policy of boosting the economy by encouraging consumption, and so the next president must impose strong measures to boost healthy financing of households.

In addition hidden structural problems could cost W100 trillion, including loans under caution and businesses that cannot meet their debt service ratio and the incoming chief executive must address these too.

The team also said the law to expedite financial restructuring had been abused to extend the life on non-performing businesses, and proposed a special law to stop this.

It noted that the memorandum of understanding bank heads had to sign with the Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation prior to receiving public funds, in which they promised to raise management standards was too strict and may have led to them "hiding" bad loans. The team proposed easing the MOU so that these would be reflected accurately on the banks' balance sheets.

The team said right after the financial crisis in 1997, the government wrote off non-performing assets of financial institutions using public funds, but now the administration's budget cannot do this and so if another financial crisis erupts through mismanagement there are no measures to counter it. It added financial organizations should remove this mismanagement by themselves and only use recovered public funds to bail out banks with no money.

In order to maintain transparent management of public funds, the committee doing this should be transferred from the Ministry of Finance and Economy to the national Assembly, which is neutral. The team proposed that the next president should not fail to conduct a National Assembly investigation into the problems during the creation and use of public funds.