Interest Rate Competition Hits Limit... Savings Banks Aim to Capture MZ Generation with YouTube and B-Grade Sensibility Webtoons (Comprehensive)

"Promotion of Interest Rate Benefits Alone Is Difficult for Expansion"
Appealing to 2030 with Creative Content

Various parody videos and comics are uploaded on OK Savings Bank's YouTube page 'Eutman'.

[Asia Economy Reporter Song Seung-seop] The savings bank industry is actively shifting away from a sole focus on ‘interest rate competition’ to marketing strategies aimed at capturing the MZ generation (Millennials and Generation Z). They are not only launching YouTube and social media (SNS) pages but also collaborating with webtoon artists known for their ‘B-grade sensibility.’ This marks a clear departure from the past, when the focus was mainly on promoting preferential interest rates for non-face-to-face sign-ups or raising rates by even 0.1 percentage points.

According to the savings bank industry on the 25th, OK Savings Bank’s YouTube channel, which has 340,000 subscribers, features parody videos starring the OK Savings Bank character ‘Utmane,’ as well as content such as ‘cookbang’ (cooking broadcasts) and ‘ASMR.’ Among its flagship content, ‘Utmane Movingtoon,’ 7 out of the last 10 videos posted recently have surpassed 1 million views, indicating high interest. On the 19th, a cartoon book titled The Story of Utmane Whose Heart Beats Like Carrots, themed around Utmane, was published.

Welcome Savings Bank has also moved beyond simply posting advertisements featuring sponsored athletes to offering a variety of content. Marketing staff appear personally to promote Welcome Savings Bank, and they have collaborated with ‘Jjaltoon,’ a webtoon artist famous among young people for B-grade sensibility content. SangSangIn Plus Savings Bank’s YouTube page ‘YouJamSang’ has recruited comedian Shim Hyun-seop to produce ‘SangSangIn parodies,’ while SBI Savings Bank and JT Chin-Ae Savings Bank provide various events targeting the 20s and 30s demographic through their Facebook pages.

In an Era of Ultra-Low Interest Rates, Interest Rate Competition Has Limits in Capturing the MZ Generation

The reason the marketing approach of the savings bank industry has changed from the past is widely understood to be that it is no longer easy to attract customers with interest rate benefits alone. With a general perception that it is difficult to generate profits from bank interest rates, industry insiders believe that marketing strategies focused on short-term product sales through interest rate hikes have limitations.

An official from a savings bank explained, “Originally, the main customer base of savings banks was the elderly, and product advertisements were based on regions, emphasizing interest rates or limits. ‘B-grade sensibility’ content, which middle-aged and older generations find hard to understand, has emerged because interest rates have fallen and the market size has grown independently, making marketing related to corporate image relatively more important.”

In particular, the prevailing view is that marketing based on interest rate superiority has limits due to prolonged ultra-low interest rates caused by low growth, structural recession, and the impact of COVID-19. It has become difficult to find fixed deposit products with interest rates in the 2% range even within the savings bank industry. According to the Financial Supervisory Service’s integrated financial product comparison disclosure data, as of this date, the average deposit interest rate of the five major savings banks (OK, Welcome, SBI, Pepper, Korea Investment) stands at about 1.82%. OK Savings Bank offers 1.80%, Korea Investment Savings Bank 1.70%, and the other three banks have identical rates of 1.90%.

There is also analysis that this is part of a strategy to actively capture the 20s and 30s generation, who have high loan demand and digital/mobile usage, ahead of the launch of the open banking service scheduled for March. Another savings bank official said, “As industry competition intensifies and open banking services dominated by commercial banks aim to attract young generations, it is necessary to improve positive perceptions of savings banks. This is a strategy to instill a positive image of savings banks among increasingly savvy customers.”

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