Card Company CEOs Born in the Year of the Rat: Will 'Shinhan, Samsung, Hyundai' Deliver Results This Year?

Im Young-jin, President of Shinhan Card, Jung Tae-young, Vice Chairman of Hyundai Card
Won Ki-chan, President of Samsung Card, Notably Born in the 1960s

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki Ha-young] As we enter 2020, the Year of the White Rat (Gyeongja Year, 庚子年), attention is focused on the moves of rat-year CEOs leading the card industry. With challenges such as reduced merchant fees and the emergence of fintech, the management environment surrounding the card industry is expected to remain difficult this year. The key point to watch is how these rat-year CEOs will devise winning strategies to find breakthroughs.

According to the card industry on the 5th, the heads of the leading companies Shinhan, Samsung, and Hyundai Card were all born in 1960.

Lim Young-jin, CEO of Shinhan Card, recently succeeded in his reappointment. Despite difficult conditions such as lowered merchant fees and new competitors in the payment market, he is credited with solidifying Shinhan Card’s position as the top card company. In his New Year's message, Lim emphasized, "2020 should be the first year of another decade in which Shinhan Card creates a new growth history," adding, "With the spirit of 'Geukgi Sangjin'?overcoming myself and constantly moving forward?let's surpass yesterday's Shinhan Card, lead a deep wave in the market, and transform from 'number one' to 'world-class.'"

To achieve this, Lim presented five major agendas: 'World-class Shinhan and One Shinhan, strengthening leadership in the payment market, accelerating multi-finance, creating differentiated value in platform business, and evolving core competencies.'

Jung Tae-young, Vice Chairman of Hyundai Card, has introduced design management across all operations and gained industry attention through creative cultural marketing such as the 'Super Concert.' He is also actively pursuing efforts to transform into a digital financial company in line with the Fourth Industrial Revolution era. Starting this year, the five-level hierarchical system of 'Department Head - Deputy General Manager - Manager - Assistant Manager - Staff' was changed to a three-level system of 'Senior Manager, Manager, Associate' to promote a more horizontal organizational culture.

Vice Chairman Jung explained via his Facebook account, "With the change from five ranks to three, I expect the concept of horizontality to spread more than hierarchy," adding, "There will also be flexibility in assigning positions and missions with less consideration of rank." Although there will be no rank promotions, the pay bands for each rank will be broadened to maintain salary increases similar to before.

Won Ki-chan, CEO of Samsung Card, is considered a long-serving CEO in the card industry. Since his appointment in January 2014, he has led Samsung Card for six years. While maintaining solid performance through sound management, he faces a burden due to a first trial sentence of 1 year and 6 months imprisonment with a 3-year probation for involvement in the Samsung Electronics Service 'union busting operation.'

In his New Year's message this year, CEO Won urged, "This year, we must secure the constitution and capabilities to respond to future environments and move forward as a world-class Samsung Card that innovates the future through openness and challenge." To this end, he proposed expanding the membership base, enhancing personalized customer experiences, deepening data analysis and digital utilization capabilities, and creating new customer value beyond payments and finance.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.