Shinhan takes lead in financial data business

Shinhan Card CEO Lim Young-jin, second from right, and other participants in the opening ceremony of the Financial Data Exchange push buttons at the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul, Monday. Lim is in charge of Shinhan Financial Group's big data business. / Court

By Park Jae-hyuk

Shinhan Financial Group is getting far ahead of its rivals in the financial data business here.

According to the Financial Security Institute, Thursday, the nation's largest banking group's two subsidiaries ― Shinhan Card and Shinhan Bank ― are respectively the most and the second-most popular data suppliers on the Financial Data Exchange that opened Monday.

The exchange, which was established to collect quality data from the overall financial sectors and to trade value-added data, came as the National Assembly passed revisions in January to ease regulations on data usage.

Since the deregulatory measures went into effect, financial data has been expected to be used in various sectors, including public institutions.

Against this backdrop, Shinhan Chairman Cho Yong-byoung introduced a system under which CEOs of the group subsidiaries will play a leading role in incorporating key technologies into their digital transformation processes.

“CEOs' digital leadership, along with synchronization of strategy and culture, is crucial for our successful digital transformation,” Cho said at a management meeting in March.

Under the system, Shinhan Card CEO Lim Young-jin has been tasked to direct the group's big data business.

Lim was one of the participants in the opening ceremony of the Financial Data Exchange, Monday, along with Shinhan Bank CEO Jin Ok-dong, who is in charge of the group's artificial intelligence business.

Even before the opening of the exchange, Shinhan Card tested 10 data transactions.

In particular, the country's leading credit card issuer sold its analysis of data on the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on domestic consumption, so as to help the government establish policies for small business owners and businesses establish marketing strategies against the changing consumption patterns.

“Since the data exchange was established with the government's infrastructure during this era of the data economy, we will sincerely participate in the exchange to boost this project using our vast range of big data,” the Shinhan Card CEO said.

Shinhan Bank also vowed to help various companies create added value with financial data.

It became the nation's first bank to sell financial data through the exchange.

The bank said it can provide income, spending and financial assets information of each local community by using data on its 25 million customers and their over 300 million transactions a month.

“With the opening of the Financial Data Exchange, we hope to enhance the value of financial data we own and to boost the financial data market,” a Shinhan Bank official said. “We plan to discover more hidden value of data, which will help various businesses create more added value.”