Banks' MyData drives draw lukewarm response

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By Lee Min-hyung

Korean commercial banks' much-hyped MyData businesses are drawing a lukewarm response from the market, as they offer “few differentiating factors” from conventional services, industry sources said Thursday.

As of Jan. 5, a group of 33 financial firms ― including banks, card firms and securities firms ― started their own MyData services. Licensed MyData business operators ― mostly financial firms ― can offer customized services by collecting their users' personal financial data and displaying it all on one platform.

Major lenders ― such as KB, Shinhan, Hana and Woori ― also launched the services to take the lead in the nascent growth area. KB Kookmin Bank placed its MyData focus on asset management services, with Woori Bank launching a service to predict changes in customers' future asset sizes in accordance with their life cycle.

But the data-driven services have not drawn as much attention as expected in the first week after their launches, as customers do not feel the need to use the services.

Even if they can capitalize on the services easily by using banking apps, most customers here do not have a tendency to set up asset management portfolios in mobile apps, an industry official said.

“MyData services appear not be attractive enough to grab the attention of customers, at a time when similar financial services have already been available to them,” a financial industry source said. “The point should be how to differentiate MyData services from existing ones, but this is not the case for the time being.”

Privacy concerns also come as a stumbling block to the rapid growth of the data-driven services. Naver Financial let about 100 customers' financial information leak while testing its MyData service last month.

Bank industry officials, however, argue they have to keep developing more services and jump into the MyData competition.

“Even though the MyData business got off to a rocky start, banks have no choice but to keep launching more services and developing existing ones, as MyData is a major route to expand their marketing activities and revenue structures,” another industry source said.

Given its infancy, some of the services may fall short of customers' expectations, but there stands an ample chance for banks to launch better and easier-to-use services down the road, according to the official.

“With financial firms compiling more datasets from their users, they can conduct more accurate analysis and launch quality services.”

Another reason for financial firms to escalate their investment in the area is because of the rise of non-face-to-face transactions during the pandemic.

“Mobile transaction volume will be on the continuous rise here and abroad due to the pandemic-induced digital transformation in the financial industry, so banks have to keep finding ways to diversify their revenue structures through their mobile platforms.”

The Financial Services Commission unveiled its plan to start the MyData project in 2020 and dozens of financial firms here won licenses to operate the service. Customers can take advantage of MyData by looking at their scattered financial information on a single platform.