In a move that has rocked the Korean investment banking industry, the Financial Services Board (FSB) announced yesterday that it would place onerous new restrictions on client entertainment - by limiting alcohol consumption.

The move came on the heels of a new report that reckoned 68% of bankers in Korea were still partially inebriated between the hours of 8am and 11am. The report suggested that Korea’s financial services industry was only 82% as productive in the morning hours as in the afternoon.

Foremost among the regulations is an alcohol restriction that will limit bankers and their clients to 10 units of alcohol per night. “That’s clearly not workable,” said one local banker on the condition of anonymity. “That’s only three glasses of wine, a double whisky and a beer. The evening will be over by 10pm.”

Moreover, the regulations specify that no member of the financial services community will be allowed to drink what the Koreans call ‘bombs’. A ‘bomb’ is a shot of whisky poured into a glass of beer and downed in one.

“Bombs are particularly dangerous,” said the FSB official. “They are normally drank in karaoke bars and seem like a good idea at the time, but before you know it you have drank four, it is 3am and you can’t even pronounce your own name.”

Ahem, the new regulation comes into force today. That’s the 1st of April …….