By Kim Jae-won
Staff Reporter
Koreans have been proud of Samsung Electronics as the local IT firm boosted the national brand image at the international level with best-quality products. Samsung Card, a financial subsidiary of Samsung Group, also aims to follow its sister company to be a global leader in the credit card industry.
To that end, it first plans to solidify its leading position in the local market. It plans to focus on expanding availability of its card use by combining existing mobile payment settlement process with new technologies.
At the same time, it plans to develop a new market with pioneering spirit in a bid to secure a future growth engine. It will also seek to expand its customer base by classifying customers by life stages and developing various products to meet demands from each market segment.
On overseas services side, the plastic issuer plans to provide more premium services abroad by forming an alliance with global companies, such as American Express. It is studying ways to make forays into overseas markets as a long-term agenda to find a new growth engine.
Currently, it offers a variety of overseas services, including ``Emergency Card Issue Service,'' ``Medical Support Service,'' and ``Legal Consulting Service,'' for customers who are in danger overseas.
The card company hopes that it can free customers from worries when they travel with an excellent quality of service from chain stores around the world.
Samsung kept stable growth last year with aggressive risk management and high efficiency amid the global crisis.
The credit card firm marked a net profit of 603.8 billion won in 2009, up 234.3 percent from the previous year showing the firm has escaped from tunnel of the economic downturn.
Successful risk management contributed to such a surprising performance. The loan-loss provisions dropped dramatically reaching 239.6 billion won in 2009, down 49 percent year-on-year. This is money set aside for bad loans, customer defaults, or when terms of a loan have to be renegotiated.
Credit purchase also increased gradually over the last two years ― from 31.7 trillion won in 2007 to 37.4 trillion won a year later. In 2009, it reached 38.9 trillion won, up four percent from the previous year.
Samsung gets a good evaluation from credit rating agencies. All three major local firms ― Korea Management Consulting & Credit Ratings Corp, NICE Investors Service, and Korea Investors Service ― evaluate Samsung's corporate bonds as AA as of February, which means principle solvency is excellent.