This study aims at analysing basic operational grounds of regional financial institutions in Pusan. Since 1980s many papers have discussed the issues how to develop the regional financial market. But they have neglected regional financial institutions and failed to clarify their roles in the regional economy. Recently the central government expels many regional financial institutions under financial distresses from the regional financial market without assessing their roles in the regional economy. This paper shows that regional financial institutions are indispensible for the stability and development of the regional economy, especially because they can supply credit to the small firms and households which have vulnerable credit standings and are tightly constrained in their access to bank credit. This paper also examines how credit unions deal with the problems caused by asymmetric information after the collapse of solidarity.