[New Year's Address] Kim Hak-su, President of the Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute, "Focus on Financial Clearing, Authentication, and Data 3-First"

"I will serve as a vanguard of the financial sector's digital New Deal"

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Sun-mi] On the 4th, Kim Hak-su, President of the Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute (KFTC), stated in his 2021 New Year's address that he will focus capabilities on the three areas of 3-First (First: Financial Clearing, Authentication, Data) to serve as a vanguard for the digital New Deal in the financial sector.

President Kim identified '3-First' as the key tasks for this year. He told employees, "We must concentrate our capabilities on the three areas of financial clearing, authentication, and data," adding, "First, as the dedicated institution for the core infrastructure of financial clearing, we must provide world-class services even in a changing environment."

He said, "This year, the financial clearing market is expected to undergo paradigm shifts such as the introduction of MyPayment and comprehensive payment services, and our institute is at the center of this turbulence," adding, "While operating the infrastructure stably, we must continuously implement new services that respond to changes to create an innovative financial clearing infrastructure (KFTC-Net)."

Secondly, he mentioned that the institute must establish itself as the representative authentication institution in the new era of authentication in the financial sector. He said, "During the era of public certificates, we were the absolute leader in financial transaction authentication in Korea with a market share approaching 75%, but now we are just one of the players," adding, "We must leverage the trust built so far as a competitive advantage and provide an integrated authentication service usable not only for financial transaction authentication but also for all electronic finance requiring identity verification, namely the online master key (YesKey)."

Thirdly, he said the institute must play a leading role in revitalizing the financial data economy. President Kim stated, "The data processed by KFTC amounts to 230 million cases daily on average, and including data from participating institutions, the data available to us is the largest scale in the financial sector," adding, "In the financial industry, data is the future growth engine, and the success or failure of the data economy depends on how well large-scale data is utilized. Let's stably build a joint data integration platform for the financial sector and, together with participating institutions and various business departments, provide attractive business models that only we can offer."

President Kim said, "The core of all this is speed," adding, "It is important to try with fast decision-making and action, and whether failure or success, learn from it and try again." He also added, "This year's organizational restructuring will be carried out to effectively implement 3-First by creating mutual synergy and strengthening openness and flexibility."

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