[New Year's Address] Kim Jung-tae, Chairman of Hana Financial Group, "We Must Achieve Digital First and Leading Global"

"Must Survive Competition with Big Tech"
"Crossing Financial Boundaries through Enterprise-wide Cooperation"

[Asia Economy Reporter Kiho Sung] Kim Jung-tae, Chairman of Hana Financial Group, emphasized that "Hana Financial Group is receiving a harsh evaluation that does not even reach one-fifth of the combined market capitalization of Kakao Bank and Kakao Pay, two companies that successfully went public last year," and stressed the need to strengthen advantages to survive in the competition.

In his 2022 New Year's address on the 3rd, Chairman Kim said, "We must go beyond the boundaries of finance based on company-wide cooperation," and highlighted the need for a 'level-up of strengths.'

He stated, "As a comprehensive financial group, we must upgrade our unique strengths one step further to compete with rivals," emphasizing, "We possess a strong offline channel that big tech companies do not have." He continued, "We need to transform this into a customer-centric omni-channel and provide differentiated consulting services in areas where human expertise is essential, based on financial professionalism. We should actively promote digital customized services for corporate clients where big tech entry is difficult, and invest in and collaborate with future growth companies based on the group's capital strength."

Chairman Kim specifically emphasized 'Digital First' and 'Leading Global.' He said, "It should not just be a slogan of 'digital transformation'; we must redesign the group's digital core foundation," adding, "We need to internalize key technologies, nurture and secure excellent talent, and rapidly expand the supporting organizations and infrastructure."

He also said, "In the global market, not only banks but all group companies should find business models that allow collaboration and enter together armed with digital capabilities," and added, "To make many want to become our global partners, we must further solidify the group's global human and physical infrastructure and practice ESG management that meets global standards."

Chairman Kim evaluated, "Beyond the broken boundaries of the industry, there clearly exist areas of opportunity where we can grow anew," but noted, "Currently, our core competencies are mostly limited to traditional financial areas such as personal finance, corporate finance, wealth management (WM), and investment banking (IB)."

He continued, "Therefore, by further strengthening the areas we excel in to achieve continuous growth within the financial sector, and based on this, continuing the journey beyond financial boundaries into digital and global realms, Hana Financial's future will be transformed into a completely new form."

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