Korean-American bank chief seeks contribution to Korea
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By Choi Kyong-ae
BBCN Bank chairman and chief executive Kevin S. Kim first went to the U.S. as 25-year-old university graduate to study for a master’s degree in business administration.
Thirty-two years later in November of 2014, he flew back to Korea with a plan to open a branch of BBCN ― a Nasdaq-listed bank that has long served the Korean community in the United States. The bank aims to open the branch in about a year.
“As BBCN Bank is familiar with the U.S. banking system and runs countrywide sales networks, we can help Korean companies enter the market and do business better there with customized financial products and services,” he told The Korea Times.
Moreover, as Korea’s economic power kep growing and Korean companies increasingly advanced into the U.S., demand for BBCN Bank’s “advanced” services in corporate banking, business loans and property-based loans would grow among Korean corporate customers, he said.
Kim’s nationality, which he once regarded as a major disadvantage for promotion and success in the U.S., has now become a great advantage for him working with Korean customers.
“I was born and educated in Korea,” he said. “I fully understand Korea, its culture and its people. This really helps with dealing with Korean customers.”
Looking back on the day he left the country, Kim said, “I wasn’t planning to stay there after the MBA course. But I came to live in the U.S. for 32 years, working as an accountant for 10 years, a lawyer for 18 years and as a bank chief since 2011.”
His time as a lawyer largely involved corporate transacts such as mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and restructuring small-medium Korean businesses in the U.S.
Now, as BBCN Bank chief, he says: “We’d like to make a bigger contribution to the development and prosperity of the Korean community in the U.S. Such efforts will help Korea become a major economic powerhouse.”
BBCN Bank does not plan to enter Korea’s already saturated retail banking sector. BBCN stands for Business Bank of Center and Nara. The bank is the result of a merger between Nara Bancorp and Center Financial Corp. in Nov. 2011.
The Los Angeles-based bank had more than $7 billion (7.7 trillion won) in assets and $5.5 billion in deposits as of the end of September. Korean individuals and companies account for 60-70 percent of its customers.
U.S. institutional investors own about 85 percent of the bank, with Korean investors and others holding the rest.