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.
Financial firms speed up digitization in COVID-19 world
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By Kim Bo-eun
By Kim Bo-eun
Financial firms are stepping up efforts to get ready for an increasingly digital-oriented world following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital transformation has become a pressing task based on concerns that additional waves of infections may occur as the virus could subside temporarily.
Cho Yong-byoung
Shinhan Financial Group Chairman Cho Yong-byoung held a series of meetings on digitization from April 21 through April 24. The daily teleconference meetings, in which CEOs of the group's affiliates and employees took part, reviewed the plans of each unit.
Digitization has long since been a key task, but the concentration of meetings last month is seen as efforts to accelerate progress due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shinhan's brokerage unit began coding classes for all employees this month. Shinhan Investment said the courses are intended to develop a "digital-oriented mindset" among employees.
Son Tae-seung
Woori Financial Group said Chairman Son Tae-seung will head the group's committee on driving digitization. Son, taking the chief post of the committee, signals the group's renewed emphasis on the task.
Woori last month introduced a mentoring system within the group's key affiliates, where employees of the digital division mentor executives. This is a way to familiarize executives with the digital services offered, and improve communication among lower-and higher-level officials to make the organization more flexible for forthcoming changes in a digital world.
Kim Jung-tai
Hana Financial Group under the leadership of Chairman Kim Jung-tai is seeking to work with “insurtech” platform Bomapp, to offer enhanced digital services in insurance. Insurtech, a Korean term combining the terms "insurance" and "technology," refers to incorporating new technology into insurance to maximize efficiency.
Earlier, the group's affiliates invested 8.5 billion won in the startup. Bomapp enables users to check the insurance policies they hold at a glance, file for claims and sign up for policies.
KB Financial Group led by Chairman Yoon Jong-kyoo has fully engaged in digitization efforts. Kookmin Bank CEO Hur Yin has played a key role as the head of the group's digital innovation division.
Yoon Jong-kyoo
The group has been preparing groundbreaking steps this year to establish a digital infrastructure and innovate face-to-face sales channels, incorporating artificial intelligence, big data and robotic processing automation. KB plans to test the latter within this year.
"Prior to the coronavirus, financial firms largely approached digitization from a cost perspective, but now the need for the transformation has grown immensely, based on customer demand for mobile transactions," Kim Wi-dae, a research fellow at the Korea Center for International Finance, said.
"The situation surrounding COVID-19 has given a kick to existing efforts for digitization."