Australia's Macquarie Bank Ltd. will shut down its Seoul branch by the end of March and move its brokerage staff to Macquarie Securities Korea Ltd., The Korea Economic Daily reported.

Macquarie Bank's foreign-exchange and South Korean won-lending operations will be discontinued with the branch closure.

The Macquarie Group Ltd. banking unit is the latest foreign bank exiting the South Korean market in recent years. In 2018, Switzerland-based UBS Group AG shuttered its branch in Seoul. According to South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service, the number of branches owned by foreign banks in the country fell to 45 at the end of June 2018 from 56 five years ago.