Naho-yeol, Kakao Pay CTO: "Talent with IT Security Capabilities is Top Priority"

Kakao Pay to Open Experienced Recruitment from 26th
"Focusing on Security and Trust, the Core of Finance"

Rapid Shift to Contactless Environment Brings New Security Threats

[Asia Economy Reporter Kiho Sung] The biggest topic in the fintech (finance + technology) industry this year is talent acquisition. The rapid growth driven by the expansion of contactless financial transactions and increased recognition after COVID-19 has made securing specialized personnel urgent. Among them, the core focus is on recruiting ‘IT developers.’

Kakao Pay, which is conducting large-scale hiring in the first half of this year, is putting great effort into attracting developers by dividing positions into development and non-development roles. In particular, emphasis is placed on security.

Na Hoyul, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Kakao Pay, explained in an interview with Asia Economy on the 16th, "As a financial company, our goal is to innovate business areas while simultaneously strengthening security capabilities."

CTO Na stated, "The rapid shift to a contactless environment and the emergence of new technologies such as cloud, big data, Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, and artificial intelligence (AI) present both opportunities and new security threats." He added, "We are focusing on enhancing the security and reliability, which are core competencies of financial companies, and this recruitment is in line with that direction."

Kakao Pay operates a security team composed of specialized white-hat hackers to strengthen security. The security team continuously inspects infrastructure and conducts penetration testing to detect vulnerabilities. CTO Na introduced, "Based on the zero-trust security model, we set security boundaries, control access through multi-factor authentication and least privilege assignment, and strengthen security through regular management and monitoring." While IT companies have traditionally focused on defending against external attacks under the assumption that ‘the inside is safe,’ the zero-trust security model assumes ‘the inside is not safe either,’ verifying and monitoring everything.

Expertise and Collaboration Skills Are Crucial... Leading in Technology

CTO Na emphasized innovation alongside security. Differentiated technological capabilities are the key to surviving digital competition in the contactless era. He explained, "Kakao Pay has invested in biometric authentication, optical character recognition (OCR), alternative credit scoring models, machine learning-based fraud detection systems (FDS), and hyper-personalized recommendation technologies. Moving forward, we plan to hire developers and continuously invest in developing and applying AI-based security and risk management technologies, robo-advisors, and computer vision-based video processing technologies for unmanned stores."

Regarding the core talent profile at Kakao Pay, he stressed the importance of expertise and collaboration skills. CTO Na said, "Professional technical skills are assessed through a pre-assignment where candidates develop a sample application and during practical interviews where we focus on code reviews, domain knowledge exploration, and problem-solving abilities alongside Kakao Pay developers. Collaboration skills are essential for modern software developers; the ability to participate openly in discussions, mediate conflicts, boost team energy, and ultimately produce results is required of all developers."

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