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Lee Kyung-min

Korea Times AI content 2 team Reporter

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Banking & Finance

Hana Bank rolls out AI pension investment solution service

Hana Bank has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) pension investment and withdrawal management service, becoming the first bank in Korea to offer a comprehensive solution focused on the retirement payouts, the lender said Wednesday. The move coincides with growing concern over how older adults manage pension assets after retirement, as longer life expectancy and market volatility lead to increased risk of funds being depleted too quickly. The newly introduced service is designed for customers holding individual retirement pensions. It uses AI to propose portfolio strategies to secure a stable cash flow throughout the withdrawal period while balancing investment returns and risks. Unlike traditional pension services that emphasize fund increase, the new service focuses on withdrawal services mid-subscription. The service is built on a goal-based investing framework developed in collaboration with Hana Financial Group’s technology subsidiary, Hana TI. The system incorporates product recommendations, advanced asset allocation techniques and shorter rebalancing cycles. It also conducts s

Dec 31, 2025By Lee Kyung-min
Hana Bank rolls out AI pension investment solution service
Banking & Finance

Sharp won gain triggers $100 bill sellout at bank branch

A bank branch reported that $100 bills had sold out, with some investors buying them on expectations of a reversal in the recent sharp appreciation of the Korean won against the U.S. dollar, market watchers said Friday. Some say the incident is indicative of lingering skepticism over whether the foreign exchange (FX) authorities can stabilize the currency. It comes amid a lack of measures to fundamentally tackle structural issues dragging down the value of the Korean currency in the context of the receding power of the global reserve currency. According to a Hana Bank branch in Gangnam, southern Seoul, it ran out of $100 bills late Wednesday. The news made headlines after it posted a notice informing customers that U.S. currency was unavailable. The lender said the shortage was due to timing issues, adding that requests for additional dollar bills from headquarters had not been made in time. However, the episode fanned expectations among retail investors that strong demand for dollars would continue, with many of them seeking to buy the U.S. currency during what they consider a short-live

Dec 26, 2025By Lee Kyung-min
Sharp won gain triggers $100 bill sellout at bank branch
Banking & Finance

Domestic, foreign banks tap into wealth management to drive revenue diversification

Domestic and foreign lenders are intensifying their push into wealth management to secure new long-term growth drivers beyond traditional interest income, seeking to target high net worth older adults with senior-focused services and digital advisory platforms, market watchers said Friday. The competition is underpinned by demographic and income trends. According to KB Financial Group’s latest wealth report, the number of individuals with over 1 billion won ($694,000) in financial assets rose to 476,000 in 2025, up from 354,000 in 2020. Those with more than 30 billion won in financial assets recorded the fastest growth, increasing at an average rate of 12.9 percent each year. The collective move also comes as net interest margins face pressure from regulation, competition and rate volatility. Wealth management and trust services are emerging as a key source of sustainable growth. Hana Bank runs Club1, a flagship wealth management hub jointly operated with securities firms. It has steadily expanded its premium products to 207 private banking centers nationwide, staffed by 827 wealth ma

Dec 26, 2025By Lee Kyung-min
Domestic, foreign banks tap into wealth management to drive revenue diversification
Banking & Finance

Hana Financial teams up with Korea Senior Citizens Association to lead financial services for seniors

Hana Financial Group has partnered with the Korea Senior Citizens Association to strengthen financial security, convenience and long-term asset management for the country’s growing senior population, the group said Thursday. The move comes as Korea becomes a super-aged society and financial services are expanding beyond traditional banking to enhance seniors’ quality of life. The group signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the association to better respond to demographic changes and provide comprehensive financial support tailored to seniors. The signing ceremony was held at the association headquarters in central Seoul, attended by association chairman Lee Joong-keun and Hana Financial Group Chairman Ham Young-joo. The two agreed to identify joint initiatives, including the launch of products for association members such as pensions, senior-focused financial counseling and education, as part of a broader financial cooperation to improve their welfare. A key benefit of the partnership is tied to cards issued by Hana Card, the group’s subsidiary. Association members who sig

Dec 25, 2025By Lee Kyung-min
Hana Financial teams up with Korea Senior Citizens Association to lead financial services for seniors
Banking & Finance

Retail US equity investors lukewarm about gov't tax incentives

Kim, a 41-year-old office worker in Seoul who holds shares of major U.S. tech companies, said she would rather pay the tax than sell the stocks. “The recently rolled out tax exemption looks big in headlines, but it doesn’t come close to the upside I expect from the U.S. market,” she said, adding that she is not sure how the tax incentives can reverse a structural shift toward overseas assets. “This is obviously a short-term measure. I don’t think retail investors would return to the problem-fraught KOSPI market where large-cap market leaders like SK hynix shares are placed under a warning over a standard meant to curb short-term price manipulations by speculative forces. At least the U.S. equity does not have that kind of unreasonable, nonsensical and baffling market rules.” Another retail investor named Park, 35, who has steadily increased his U.S. equity investment over the past three years, is equally unconvinced. “This feels like a policy aimed at fixing the Korean currency weakening against the U.S. dollar using individual investors,” he said. “I think I speak for m

Dec 25, 2025By Lee Kyung-min
Retail US equity investors lukewarm about gov't tax incentives
Banking & Finance

iM Bank names deputy president as new CEO

Kang Jeong-hun, iM Bank executive vice president, has been recommended as the sole candidate to lead the bank, the bank said Sunday. According to iM Financial Group, the appointment is viewed as aligning with financial regulators’ best practices guidelines for corporate governance. The group’s executive candidate recommendation committee held a meeting to make the decision on Dec. 19. Kang will become the bank’s 15th CEO later this year, after the appointment is approved at an iM Bank’s shareholders’ meeting. The group said the committee held four meetings starting in September, three months before the current CEO’s term expires. Born in 1969, Kang joined Daegu Bank, now known as iM Bank, in 1997 and has since held a number of key positions, including head of the group’s future strategy. He currently heads the management planning group at iM Bank, overseeing strategy and finance. The group said the committee held in-depth deliberations to find the most suitable candidate who could contribute to iM Bank’s sustainable growth and its transition as a regional-based nationwide co

Dec 21, 2025By Lee Kyung-min
iM Bank names deputy president as new CEO
Others

Silver to surge on strong industrial demand in 2026: BNP Paribas economist

Silver prices will soar, buoyed by strong industrial demand and growing investor interest in the metal as an inflation hedge, according to an economist, Sunday. Philippe Gijsels, chief strategy officer at BNP Paribas Fortis, said in his new book, “The New World Economy in 5 Trends,” that a potential rise in the price of silver and the largest bull market in commodities the world has ever seen will materialize in 2026. “When undervaluation, deficits as far as the eye can see and a new industrial revolution meet, momentum market magic happens,” he said. "That is in a nutshell the story of silver in 2025." At the beginning of the year, there was little interest in the metal. It had seen little upward movement for many years and lagged behind gold for longer than people care to remember. “We already argued some time ago that this sleeping beauty of commodity land, which has been in deficit for quite a number of years, would finally wake up and challenge the double top of $50 per ounce that had been in place for multiple decades. The rest is already basically history, for this is ex

Dec 21, 2025By Lee Kyung-min
Silver to surge on strong industrial demand in 2026: BNP Paribas economist
Banking & Finance

Eximbank backs Guam solar project with $241 mil. in financing

The Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank) said Friday that it will provide $241 million in financing for a large-scale solar power project in Guam led by Korean companies, in a bid to expand the nation’s renewable energy investments abroad. The financing will support the Yona solar power project, awarded to a consortium of Korea Electric Power Corp., Korea East-West Power and Samsung C&T, the bank said. The package consists of $150 million in project finance loans and $91 million in equity bridge loans, tailored to support Korean companies’ overseas expansion. The project involves the construction and operation of a 132-megawatt solar power plant and a battery energy storage system with a capacity of 325 megawatt-hours in the Yona area of Guam. Around 200,000 solar panels will be installed across a 2.5 million-square-meter site, roughly equivalent to 360 soccer fields. Once completed, the project will increase the total power generation capacity in Guam by South Korean firms to 390 megawatts, accounting for about 55 percent of the island’s total generation capacity of 708 megawat

Dec 19, 2025By Lee Kyung-min
Eximbank backs Guam solar project with $241 mil. in financing
Banking & Finance

Lotte Card, Toss Bank, Hana Capital rated 'poor' in consumer protection

Lotte Card, Toss Bank and Hana Capital were ranked “poor” in consumer protection, reflecting weaknesses in internal controls, rising consumer losses and a spike in complaints over the past year, according to the country’s financial watchdog Thursday. The findings come as the government intensifies oversight of financial service providers over their sales practices and internal controls following a series of financial incidents and consumer disputes. Institutions rated “poor” are required to submit improvement plans and may face additional management-level meetings with regulators. According to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), the companies were among eight that received the low rating in this year’s financial consumer protection assessment. The annual assessment measures how effectively financial institutions protect consumers, manage complaints and operate internal controls. The results are used by the FSS to guide follow-up inspections and corrective actions. Hana Capital’s low rating reflected a sharp rise in complaints and a large-scale factoring-related financia

Dec 18, 2025By Lee Kyung-min
Lotte Card, Toss Bank, Hana Capital rated 'poor' in consumer protection
Banking & Finance

Korean firms' excessive collection of data led to Coupang data breach

The massive personal data breach at Coupang shows that collecting everything “just in case” is the default, because users have no practical way to say no, according to an IT expert Thursday. This reflects a deeper architectural flaw in digital identity systems where data oversharing is an unavoidable outcome of how identity verification is designed, said Javed Khattak, co-founder and chief financial officer of cheqd, a payment infrastructure firm. “We don’t know the exact dataset involved, but in e-commerce it’s common to store sensitive information like full birth dates when all the company needs is an age check,” he said in an interview with The Korea Times. The pattern exists across industries. Sometimes it’s driven by regulation, but far more often it’s driven by marketing, profiling and recommendation engines, in his view. “The underlying issue is that most companies treat personal data as fuel for their business, resulting in an aim to collect as much as possible rather than to minimize. The cheapest option is simply to store everything indefinitely, even when it

Dec 18, 2025By Lee Kyung-min
Korean firms' excessive collection of data led to Coupang data breach
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