Woori overhauls IT organization for digitization

By Kim Bo-eun

Woori Financial Group has conducted a major IT organizational shakeup in a bid to get the upper hand in the heated digital transformation competition in the banking industry, the group said, Monday.

To that end, the group has appointed the CEO of its IT affiliate Woori FIS as the bank's Chief Information Officer to give increasing weight to IT projects.

It has also set up an IT planning team under the bank's IT section. The head of the IT planning team will also serve as the chief of Woori FIS' bank services.

Making executives serve dual positions at Woori Bank and Woori FIS aims to unify decision-making processes within the group to speed up IT projects.

The group stated there would also be bank employees working at Woori FIS and Woori FIS employees working for banks.

"Through the overhaul, we have strengthened the cooperation system between the bank and Woori FIS," a Woori Financial Group official said.

"We will provide stable and innovative IT services in the financial sector."

As part of such efforts, the group decided to increase new recruitments at Woori FIS by 25 percent in 2019.

This is the largest increase among the group's affiliates.

After Woori FIS finishes recruiting for this year, it is expected to have around 900 employees, which would make the organization larger than Woori Card which has 700 employees.

Woori is the only major financial group with a separate IT affiliate company. The rest including KB, Shinhan and Hana have internal digital departments running their systems.

All four groups have appointed ICT experts to the position leading digital finance.

Woori Financial, which marks the 120th anniversary of its establishment this year, renewed its Wibee Bank app service in March, in efforts to boost its digital financial services.

Currently, the group is working on a project to renew its mobile banking services.

Woori Financial Group Chairman Sohn Tae-seung has set strengthening digital capabilities as one of the group's four major projects for this year, along with boosting its capabilities in wealth management and corporate and investment banking.