Woori Bank Forms Special Task Force for New Business Discovery... 'Zero Base Innovation' Organizational Restructuring

Kwon Kwang-seok, President of Woori Bank

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyo-jin] Woori Bank announced on the 3rd that it has carried out an organizational restructuring focused on ▲enhancing organizational vitality ▲strengthening customer-centric investment strategies ▲leading digital transformation ▲securing new revenue bases to fully promote CEO Kwon Kwang-seok's 'Zero Base Innovation.'

Woori Bank is introducing an agile organizational system to respond swiftly to the rapidly changing financial environment due to COVID-19 and other factors. It plans to establish a new 'Agile Core Team (ACT)' organization, an intermediate form between departments and teams, to act as a special task force to discover and pursue new business opportunities.

This organization will be established as needed to carry out missions assigned by management. The leader holds the authority of a department head, while internal support tasks are handled by the relevant departments, thereby increasing authority and simplifying work.

Woori Bank also established an 'Investment Product Strategy Division' within the Asset Management Group to rebuild asset management sales through customer-centric portfolio product strategies. The Investment Product Strategy Division oversees asset management products such as funds and trusts and is responsible for establishing portfolio-centered product strategies.

Furthermore, the bank plans to simultaneously pursue expertise in product strategy formulation and strengthen product development and verification capabilities. This aims to manage various investment strategies to increase customer returns and more carefully manage customers' investment risks.

Alongside this, Woori Bank established a 'Digital Transformation (DT) Promotion Team' and an 'Artificial Intelligence (AI) Business Department' in the digital sector. The DT Promotion Team includes the Digital Strategy Department, Big Data Business Department, AI Business Department, Digital Business Department, and Smart App Development Department. They will be responsible for the bank's overall digital strategy, expanding the application of new technologies, and overseeing digital marketing and channels.

In particular, the newly established AI Business Department is expected by Woori Bank to become a foundation for staying ahead in the increasingly fierce financial technology competition by researching and supporting the application of new technologies such as AI in banking operations.

Additionally, to strengthen the non-face-to-face customer management system, the customer center of the Personal Group was moved to the Digital Finance Group and organized within the same group as the Smart Customer Department. This aims to enhance close cooperation between inbound and outbound services and innovate customer service and processes.

The bank will also promote strengthening business capabilities to overcome the expected prolonged low-interest-rate era. First, it will establish a 'Securities Management Department' to generate profits by managing its own capital. The plan is to enhance capabilities related to securities management and gradually reduce dependence on interest margin by executing various management strategies.

Moreover, to expand global and investment banking (IB) businesses, a Global IB Screening Department will be established. It will integrate the Asia Screening Center located in Singapore and the Global IB Screening Team of the Large Corporate Screening Department to be responsible for global credit and IB credit. Considering the unique nature and expertise required in global and IB loan screening, the organization will be newly established to more closely examine related financial support.

A Woori Bank official said, "Through this organizational restructuring, we will strongly promote zero base innovation, and it will be an opportunity for the entire bank to regain vitality and make a fresh leap forward."

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