Shinhan Financial "Leading Post-Corona New Growth"... Expanding Innovation Growth Support to 20 Trillion Won

Shinhan Financial Group Supports Korean New Deal
Expands Innovative Growth Loans and Investments by 20 Trillion Won, Invests 110 Billion Won in Digital Startups Over 3 Years
67,000 New Hires Over 5 Years

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyojin] Shinhan Financial Group announced on the 8th that it will launch the 'Shinhan N.E.O. Project,' the first in the financial sector, to support the discovery of new growth engines for the national economy in the 'post-COVID-19' era.

'N.E.O.' stands for 'New Economic growth supporting Operations,' meaning that Shinhan Financial will systematically support the discovery of new growth engines in the post-COVID-19 era. This project will be promoted in three core directions: 'Financial support for new growth industries,' 'Leading new digital finance,' and 'Creating a new growth ecosystem.'

Financial support for new growth industries means that Shinhan Financial will expand financial support for industries that can become new growth engines for the country. To this end, it plans to significantly increase loan supply to small and medium-sized enterprises by strengthening the use of technology evaluation, activating intellectual property (IP) secured loans, and non-financial credit evaluation for future promising industries such as data, digital infrastructure, social overhead capital (SOC) digitalization, and eco-friendly sectors.

Shinhan Financial plans to actively utilize the group's social value measurement system, 'Shinhan Social Value Measurement System,' created in collaboration with Yonsei University’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Research Center, to select companies eligible for financial support in new growth industries.

Based on the results derived by applying the main industry groups targeted by the project to this system, funds will be preferentially supplied to sectors and companies with high job creation effects.

Direct and indirect investments in new growth industries will also increase. While supplying funds to the new growth ecosystem through venture capital investments, the group will also pursue ways to support government and local governments’ smart city development projects by utilizing the investment functions of the Global Investment Banking (GIB) division.

To this end, Shinhan Financial has decided to increase the existing supply of innovation growth loans and investments by more than KRW 20 trillion, investing a total of KRW 85 trillion over the next five years.

In line with the 'Digital New Deal,' which strengthens data, networks, and artificial intelligence ecosystems, Shinhan Financial plans to take a leading role in revitalizing the financial data exchange based on the vast financial data held by the group. Additionally, it will upgrade financial services such as credit screening and SOHO platforms by utilizing approximately 140,000 public data sets.

Along with this, the group will drastically promote the digitalization of core financial services to provide higher quality services more quickly to a wider range of industries and consumers. In particular, it aims to lead innovation in corporate finance by fully digitalizing all aspects of corporate finance?from developing new corporate credit and credit processes to paperless sales environments, digital-based currency exchange, trade and non-trade remittance processing, and building SOHO-specialized mobile platforms.

Creating a new growth ecosystem aims to discover digital startups and establish a new ecosystem combining industry and finance.

Through 'Shinhan Future’s Lab,' the financial sector’s first startup accelerator program, Shinhan Financial plans to invest KRW 110 billion in digital startups by 2023 to actively support innovation in the startup ecosystem.

Shinhan Financial will contribute to job creation through various projects and social contribution activities, including this project, 'Innovative Finance,' and the 'Hope Society Project.' The group has also set a goal to hire approximately 6,700 new employees over the next five years, with more than 50% of them being digital and ICT convergence talents.

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