Bo-eun leads the digital content team. She has covered foreign affairs, North Korea, tech, economy and gender issues at The Korea Times. She did a short stint at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, where she obtained a new perspective on news production and life. Small sources of joy for her are lounging in the sun, having a good latte and swimming.
Techfin competes with fintech
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By Kim Bo-eun
By Kim Bo-eun
Fintech is generally understood as financial firms incorporating technology to enhance the services they offer in the digital era. Banks have predominantly led these efforts, in cooperation with technology startups. However, established technology firms are also making notable efforts to provide financial services, in collaboration with finance companies. This is called “techfin.”
Jack Ma, co-founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group, referred to the idea in 2016.
“There are two big opportunities in the future financial industry,” he said. “One is online banking, where all the financial institutions go online; the other is internet finance, which is purely led by outsiders.”
Kakao Pay of the IT company Kakao is leading “internet finance.”
Kakao Pay will begin a service through which users can check the entirety of their financial data, including that of other financial firms.
Users can check transactions including deposits, withdrawals, savings, investments and loans of the banks whose services they use. Users are also able to check payments they have made with credit cards, their credit card bill as well as card loans. Kakao Pay plans on adding securities firms and insurers to the list of finance companies users can check their transactions of.
Kakao Pay plans to expand its services to include an analysis of financial assets and asset management.
The vast financial and non-financial data that Kakao and Kakao Pay own, and their capability to analyze big data is set to serve as an advantage in providing detailed analysis and personalized financial consulting.
Meanwhile, portal giant Naver's Japanese subsidiary Line is gearing up to become a lifestyle platform providing financial services.
At its annual conference on June 27, Line stated it would begin a personal credit rating service, "Line Score." Line users in Japan can check their credit rating on Line's app.
In the latter half of this year, the company is set to launch Line Securities, a joint venture between Line Financial and Nomura Securities.
Line will also introduce an app-based loan service, which will calculate the maximum amount of loans an individual can receive based on his or her credit rating under Line Score.
Another of Line's plans is to launch a mobile credit card with Starbucks.
SKT, a mobile carrier here, launched a savings product with DGB Daegu Bank in May.
It offers a yearly interest rate of up to 5 percent. Over 40,000 people have signed up over the past month.
A savings product is usually considered to have done well if it attracts 20,000 customers in its first month.
“These trends pit tech and finance companies against each other,” a researcher at the Korea Institute of Finance said.
“Considering the technology, capital and non-financial data established technology companies possess, they may have an advantage. However, traditional finance companies tend to be more trusted by consumers,” he noted.