Kakao Bank Earns 280 Million KRW Per Employee... 1.5 Times More Than Commercial Banks

[Asia Economy Reporter Song Seung-seop] While employees at major banks earned an average profit of 187 million KRW per person, KakaoBank employees earned 280 million KRW per person.

According to the industry on the 5th, before setting aside provisions from January to September this year, the average profit per KakaoBank employee was 49.7% higher than the average profit per employee at the five major commercial banks: KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori, and NH Nonghyup. Last year, during the same period, the productivity per employee at the five major banks (171 million KRW) was higher than that of KakaoBank (163 million KRW).

The five major commercial banks have about 13,836 employees, whereas KakaoBank has only 964 employees, less than one-tenth of that number.

The productivity gap between the two sectors appears to be due to the presence or absence of physical branches. The five major banks have been aggressively implementing voluntary retirement and reducing branches every year, but maintaining branches and staff incurs significant costs. On the other hand, internet-only banks have no branches at all, which naturally results in higher productivity. This productivity gap has been widening sharply each quarter this year.

Last year’s productivity per employee from January to September was also lower for KakaoBank because it increased capital investment and hired new employees, causing it to lag behind the five major commercial banks. However, in annual results, KakaoBank had already surpassed the five major banks by about 13% by the end of last year.

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