Yoon Jong-won, CEO of Industrial Bank of Korea, Personally Oversees Overseas Branches... Chairs First Strategy Meeting (Comprehensive)

Overseas Store Strategy Meeting Held on the 19th
Review of This Year's Overseas Business and Discussion of 2021 Work Plans

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Sun-mi] Yoon Jong-won, President of IBK Industrial Bank of Korea, held the first overseas branch strategy meeting since his inauguration. This reflects his intention to personally oversee overseas branches and his determination to transform the bank into a top-tier global financial group ahead of IBK’s 60th anniversary next year.

At 10 a.m. on the 19th, President Yoon gathered local corporation heads and local staff from China and Indonesia, as well as the New York branch manager, via a video conferencing system in the main conference room at IBK headquarters.

Considering the inability to travel overseas directly due to the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the meeting was held in a non-face-to-face video conference format for about an hour. Following the 10 a.m. meeting, President Yoon also held another video conference at 4 p.m. with the remaining overseas branch and office heads and staff in the same manner.

The meeting’s agenda was to review the 2020 business performance of overseas corporations, branches, and offices, and to plan the 2021 business operations.

Currently, IBK has overseas corporations in two locations: China and Indonesia. In China, there are 8 sub-branches and 8 sub-offices, and in Indonesia, there are 32 branches. Additionally, IBK has branches in nine cities: New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi, New Delhi, Manila, and Phnom Penh. It also operates overseas offices in Yangon, Jakarta, and Vladivostok.

Although this meeting may appear to be a routine year-end overseas branch strategy meeting, it is significant because President Yoon personally presided over and participated in it. This is the first overseas branch strategy meeting held by President Yoon since his inauguration as IBK president in January this year. Previously, overseas branch strategy meetings were led by executive vice presidents in charge of global strategy.

This demonstrates his strong commitment to directly managing overseas markets. Since his inauguration, President Yoon has consistently expressed his ambition to make IBK a "top-tier financial group with global competitiveness." At the innovation management declaration ceremony held in July, he emphasized that "2021 is the 60th anniversary of IBK’s establishment and a turning point to prepare for a new 60 years," presenting the global expansion of mid-sized enterprise financing know-how and securing new overseas revenue sources as innovation finance tasks for innovative management.

Performance of Local Corporations in China and Indonesia Slows
Myanmar Local Corporation to Start Operations in First Half of Next Year
Time for President Yoon to Utilize Global Sensibility and Network

IBK’s globalization efforts face numerous challenges. The IBK China local corporation, established in June 2009, recorded sales of 124.385 billion KRW, operating profit of 10.681 billion KRW, and net profit of 8.05 billion KRW as of the end of September this year, which is far below last year’s total sales of 192.728 billion KRW, operating profit of 29.115 billion KRW, and net profit of 24.794 billion KRW.

The Indonesia corporation, established in September 2019, is also not profitable due to its early-stage status, with sales of 29.523 billion KRW, operating loss of 22.878 billion KRW, and net loss of 22.35 billion KRW from January to September this year. Although IBK obtained approval to establish a local corporation in Myanmar in April this year, the planned start of operations in December was postponed to the first half of next year due to the COVID-19 situation. The establishment of an office in Poland is currently under review.

Within IBK, there is high expectation that President Yoon’s solid global network will accelerate the bank’s globalization strategy. During his tenure at the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, Yoon served as Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), gaining extensive policy experience in finance and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Having worked for a long time at international organizations such as the IMF and OECD, he is recognized for his global sensibility and network. This background fuels expectations that from next year, President Yoon’s second year in office, global strategies leveraging international organization networks will be actively pursued.

An IBK official stated, "We plan to promote joint projects with international organizations and actively share SME financing know-how through future personnel dispatches, which will expand the foundation of our overseas network," adding, "We are planning new global businesses to utilize IBK’s strength in SME financing on a global scale and to secure new revenue sources."

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