Hana Financial to nurture data specialists

Hana Financial Group Chairman Kim Jung-tai, fifth from right in the second row, and KEB Hana Bank CEO Ji Sung-kyoo, fourth from right in the first row, pose with young workers selected to take a data specialist nurturing program at a hotel in Seoul, June 10. Courtesy of Hana Financial Group

By Lee Kyung-min

Hana Financial Group has joined hands with Seoul National University (SNU) to foster data specialists as part of a broader move to achieve digitization, the group said Tuesday.

In cooperation with SNU's team led by a group of noted professors at the computer science department, the group has launched a training program that will help integrate their daily work with statistics, industrial science and convergence science technology.

Thirty promising employees from the group's affiliates will take the four-month training to help improve their professional capabilities.

One-on-one, in-depth mentoring programs will help the workers deal with challenges and come up with proper digital solutions.

Fast problem-solving skills will be prioritized to improve work efficiency to help the group outline digital connection-based future business models.

The participants will return to their respective departments where they will be able to apply their learning experience to help better process the inter-affiliate tasks in a much more agile manner in the fast changing financial, business environment.

They will be required to identify new sources of profit and sustainable business models to help with the development of new technologies.

This is in line with the group's initiative to become a “data-based entity,” instead of considering digitization as one of the tools to advance its business objectives.

Ji Sung-kyoo, CEO of the group's largest and most lucrative subsidiary KEB Hana Bank, said at the launch that the bank should be distinguished by such a mindset which he said was a fundamentally different approach from his competitors.