KOMSCO to launch bloc chain based trusted platform
KOMSCO CEO Cho Yong-man
By Yoon Ja-young
The Korea Minting, Security Printing & ID Card Operating Corp. (KOMSCO) plans to launch a blockchain platform to provide new payment authentication services for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
“We are very much interested in blockchain since it is core technology related to mobile security. We have been making R&D efforts in the sector,” KOMSCO CEO Cho Yong-man said at a meeting with the media Tuesday. The former ranking official of the finance ministry was inaugurated as CEO of the state-run company in January.
Cho noted that KOMSCO’s performance has been improving continuously. Its total sales last year stood at 477.8 billion won, and operating profit jumped 50 percent to 8.8 billion won. The good performance is especially noteworthy since its traditional business of minting has been stagnant. Cho said that the company’s efforts of searching for new business opportunities and opening up overseas markets have paid off.
Regarding this year’s business plan, the CEO said that the company will concentrate on increasing social benefits and providing “perfect quality” products.
Most of all KOMSCO aims at enhancing social value by creating more quality jobs. Amid a toughening job market condition for young people, the company plans to hire 75 within the first half of the year. Information that can lead to prejudice by interviewers such as which colleges the jobseekers have graduated from or information on their parents will be hidden for fair recruitment, according to KOMSCO.
Following the conversion of contract jobs to regular jobs last year, it plans to directly employ 136 indirectly hired workers, or those dispatched by outsourcing companies, to offer them job security.
As coins and bills are used less each year due to a growing “coinless society” and the development of ICT, the company has had to find new growth engines. The KOMSCO Trusted Platform is one of these. By setting up the platform based on blockchain, it plans to provide services such as safe payment and authentication as well as information protection and management services. It expects to take leadership in the sector by combining blockchain, which is a core technology of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with the trust that KOMSCO has garnered in the sector.
Cho also pledged to bolster R&D efforts. As the sole manufacturer of Korean currency since its establishment in 1951, KOMSCO has much knowhow, including 557 intellectual property patents in anti-forgery technology. The company hopes to use them more in the authentication and brand protection businesses.
Cho also stressed productivity improvement and cost cuts, which will help diversify its market overseas. The company has been mostly exporting banknote paper and coins but it will diversify export items to special inks, bullion medals and identification products. The company has exported to more than 40 countries.
“As a state-owned company, it is our top priority to fulfill our mission as determined by society and the country. We will do our best to meet their demands and be a trusted company,” Cho said.