'Open Finance' at heart of Woori's digital strategy

Members of fintech startups hold a meeting with Woori Bank officials at Dinno Lab in Yeouido, Seoul in this file photo. / Courtesy of Woori Bank

Bank tears down walls for service development

This is the third in a series of articles highlighting major financial groups' strategies for digital transformation. ― ED.

By Kim Bo-eun

Woori Bank's digital strategy is all about opening up its data, functions and customer base, according to the bank's chief digital officer (CDO).

“Banks no longer keep technology and ideas exclusively to themselves. They need to develop products and services together with partners and customers, and need to tear down walls to enable this,” Woori Bank's CDO Hwang Weon-cheol told The Korea Times in a recent interview.

“This is done through opening up our customer data, allowing access to proprietary software under our open application programming interface (API), and sharing our customer base,” he said.

An API provides developers with program access to a proprietary software application or web service.

Woori Bank is cooperating with personal finance management mobile app, Banksalad to share customer data and offer an open API. Banksalad pools a user's financial data from different banks and finance companies onto a single platform.

The two have agreed to exchange data and for Woori to provide its API to Banksalad.

Woori Bank's Chief Digital Officer Hwang Weon-cheol / Courtesy of Woori Bank

Other initiatives Woori is starting are Wibee Fintech Lab and its Developer Lab, also known as Dinno Lab, which seek to foster fintech startups. Wibee focuses on helping firms in their early stages and Dinno on scaling up their businesses.

Woori Financial Group has unveiled plans to invest 130 billion won in innovative companies this year.

It opened Dinno Lab in April, and is currently assisting six firms through providing a test bed for their services.

The bank is also providing opportunities for the fintech firms' services to be incorporated into Woori's existing mobile application. Eight contracts have been signed so far, according to the bank.

“Countless fintech firms are born and disappear. If they were to disappear, the firms' wish is to disappear after getting customers to test their service,” Hwang said.

“So many firms disappear before they are even able to test their service because they cannot cross the death valley, which is finding customers to use their service, due to the associated costs,” the IT expert formerly at Hewlett Packard said.

Banks are able to provide this opportunity because of the sheer scale of their customer base.

Woori Financial Group Chairman Sohn Tae-seung named the digital division as a new engine of growth, and pledged to concentrate funds and personnel for the division.

Along these lines, the group provided the digital division with autonomy in project decisions and budget management.

The digital division continues to unveil a series of initiatives, including the API and revamping its mobile banking application.

“Up until recently, customers accessed banking services through channels offered by banks, such as visiting a branch, logging onto a bank's website or mobile application. Now, it's all about entering the daily routines of customers utilizing emerging technology,” Hwang said.

“Banks are like aircraft carriers ― they lack agility. This is why they need to build an ecosystem with fintech firms,” he said.