(Bloomberg) -- Three South Korean financial firms set aside almost $560 million combined to cover potential losses amid wider regulator concerns about real estate exposure as valuations continue to fall.

Woori Financial Group Inc. booked a provision of 525 billion won ($396 million) in the fourth quarter after a “comprehensive examination on vulnerable areas” such as property, Vice President Sung-Wook Lee said on a call with analysts. 

Separately, Mirae Asset Securities logged 90 billion won of provisions, including 58 billion won related to struggling construction firm Taeyoung Engineering & Construction Co. and 30 billion won related to real estate project financing, a spokesman for the firm said. 

The decision to stockpile reserves comes just days after Lee Bokhyun, the Financial Supervisory Service’s governor, told financial companies to recognize their losses. Project financing loans, used for everything from infrastructure to construction, could prove a risk trigger for the Korean economy, he added.

JB Financial Group Co. set aside 126.3 billion won in the fourth quarter, an increase of almost 26% year on year, and said it was monitoring project financing sites “tightly.”

Read more: Korea’s Real Estate Turmoil Is Far From Over

Watchdogs in Asia’s fourth-biggest economy have also been worried about overseas real estate losses after a spending spree by securities firms on office properties just before the pandemic. The firms were also active in mezzanine finance, which has been badly hit by the downturn in valuations.

The Financial Services Commission warned in December that individual firms may be at risk if overseas property bets go wrong, but said the probability of systemic stress is low.

Read more: A Huge Wager on Office Buildings Is Going From Bad to Worse

Last week, Japanese lender Aozora Bank Ltd. plunged about 33% in two days when the bank stunned the market by setting aside 32.4 billion yen ($218 million) to deal with bad loans linked to US commercial real estate. New York Community Bancorp also slashed its dividend and stockpiled cash in case such loans go bad.

(Adds provisions taken by JB Financial Group in fourth paragraph.)

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