Park Jae-hyuk is a seasoned journalist who has provided comprehensive coverage of South Korea's corporate dynamics, economic policies, industry challenges and the global positioning of Korean companies. Based on the articles he has written since joining The Korea Times in 2016, his investigative approach has helped readers understand corporate governance, economic trends and business strategies shaping South Korea’s economy.
Korean banks struggling to secure digital talent
By Park Jae-hyuk
Inflexible system prompts young engineers to leave
By Park Jae-hyuk
Shinhan, KB, Hana and Woori financial groups are facing difficulties in attracting young engineers equipped with digital skills, due to their rigid corporate culture and tough financial regulations.
Despite the nation's four largest banking groups' efforts to find such people to engineer their digital transformation as the trend for contactless transactions grows due to the COVID-19 pandemic, IT experts are choosing to work for tech firms, rather than becoming bank employees.
According to industry sources, hundreds of experienced engineers and designers rushed to visit Naver Financial's website between May 11 and 15 to apply for about 30 positions available at the IT giant's financial subsidiary.
In contrast, all 15 KB employees sent to KakaoBank in 2016 refused to return to their previous workplace late last year, despite attractive incentives from their previous employer.
These cases may seem weird to those who remember when banks were popular workplaces here because of their stability and high salaries.
Korean students, however, are choosing not to work for conventional financial firms anymore.
A survey of 1,045 university students done by Incruit in June showed Kakao was their most-favored company, followed by Samsung Electronics, Naver and CJ ENM.
The local job market information provider said the respondents mentioned Kakao's growth potential and work-life balance as the biggest reasons they want to work for the IT firm.
In the survey, none of financial firms were among the top 10.
Up until of 2017 when the Export-Import Bank of Korea ranked 10th, financial firms had regularly been in the top 10.
KB Kookmin Bank was on the list from 2006 to 2015, and Shinhan Bank was placed ninth in the same survey done in 2011.
However, their corporate cultures and regulations have led talented jobseekers to turn away from them.
“I had to do what bank employees ordered, and had to apologize when they had complaints, so I became withdrawn and suffered from an excessive workload,” an engineer who moved to a foreign company from a financial group's IT subsidiary said on condition of anonymity.
Some engineers complained of the strict network separation policy imposed on banks, because it has barred them from telecommuting or working on a flexitime basis, despite the work-from-home trend amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Efforts of foreign banks
According to the Bank of Korea (BOK), the proportion of IT experts at Korean banks dropped to 3.8 percent in 2018 from 5.7 percent in 2005.
“As there is a certain limit to banks hiring IT experts from outside, it seems their digital transformations have been stymied,” Kim Hoon, who directs analysis of financial systems at the BOK's financial stability department, said in a report in April.
He advised Korean banks to take into account global banking giants' efforts to change their organizational structure and train their employees.
“DBS is operating a department composed of over 10,000 IT and sales experts, and Lloyds Banking Group established a digital job family to minimize idle manpower by inducing employees to manage their careers for the long term,” he said.
“Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Citi have increased their investment in fintech firms to realize their digital transformation in a short period of time. These banks have also increased their acquisition of stakes in fintech firms beyond mere business collaboration.”
The central bank official also suggested banks extend the terms of their management, saying long-term tasks such as digital transformation require consistent and strong determination.
Investments in digitization
Against this backdrop, Shinhan said June 8 it aims to hire 6,700 new employees over the next five years and ensure digital experts account for more than half of them.
KB has taught its employees technologies needed for chatbot, robo-adviser and fraud detection systems at the financial artificial intelligence research center it opened at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).
Hana launched an intensive digital training program, “DT (Digital Transformation) University,” June 5 to upgrade the digital capabilities of group staff to offer better services.
“We will upgrade the digital capabilities of our employees through DT University's customized courses, and continue to make investments so that the group can offer new user experiences with upgraded capabilities,” Hana Chairman Kim Jung-tai said during a ceremony marking the launch of the program.
Woori mentioned fostering digital talent as one of its 10 tasks when it launched its committee on pushing forward digitization in May.
Chairman Son Tae-seung said at that time that the company would enroll its employees on training programs offered by ICT firms.