"25.5 Million Customers Added in One Year"…KakaoBank Doubles Operating Profit Last Year (Update)

2021 Sales 1.0649 Trillion KRW, Operating Profit 256.9 Billion KRW
Operating Profit Up 110% YoY...Effective Customer Expansion

[Asia Economy Reporter Minwoo Lee] KakaoBank posted strong earnings last year, with operating profit more than doubling compared to the previous year. The growth was driven by a sharp increase in customers in their teens and those aged 40 and above.

KakaoBank announced on the 9th that its provisional results for the fourth quarter of last year showed sales of 309.1 billion KRW and operating profit of 52 billion KRW. These figures represent increases of 45.4% and 109.7%, respectively, compared to the same period last year. Net profit for the same period rose by 30.3% to 36.2 billion KRW.

As a result, the annual performance for last year recorded sales of 1.0649 trillion KRW and operating profit of 256.9 billion KRW, up 32.4% and 109.7%, respectively, from the previous year. Annual net profit also increased by 79.6% to 204.1 billion KRW during the same period. The expansion of interest income due to loan growth and the growth of platform and fee businesses contributed to strengthening profitability.

Specifically, platform revenue last year grew by 86.8% year-on-year to 93.2 billion KRW, and fee income increased by 13% to 168.6 billion KRW. The proportion of non-interest income in total sales was maintained above 25%.

In the platform segment, the number of stock account openings and the performance of linked loans with secondary financial institutions grew by 73% and 100%, respectively, compared to the cumulative figures at the end of the previous year.

The number of stock accounts opened by customers through KakaoBank last year was 2.2 million. Since the service launch, the cumulative total reached 5.2 million accounts as of the end of last year. The cumulative amount of linked loans executed increased by more than 2 trillion KRW last year, reaching 4.132 trillion KRW. The cumulative issuance of affiliated credit cards rose to 370,000 cards.

In the fee segment, the volume of check card payments and the number of foreign remittance transactions increased by 23% and 9%, respectively, compared to the previous year.

Deposit balances increased by 6.4869 trillion KRW from the end of the previous year to 30.0261 trillion KRW. Low-cost deposits accounted for 58.3%. Loan balances rose by 5.5481 trillion KRW to 25.8614 trillion KRW during the same period.

In particular, loans for jeonse and monthly rent deposits and loans to low- and medium-credit customers drove growth. The balance of jeonse and monthly rent deposit loans increased by 4.6587 trillion KRW due to the rise in youth jeonse loans. Loans to low- and medium-credit customers amounted to 2.4643 trillion KRW.

The cost-to-income ratio (CIR) fell by 6 percentage points to 45% during the same period. As of the end of last year, the delinquency rate was 0.22%, and the net interest margin (NIM) was 1.98%. The capital adequacy ratio (BIS) stood at 35.65%.

Meanwhile, as of the end of last year, KakaoBank’s customer base reached 17.99 million, an increase of 2.55 million from the end of the previous year. The penetration rate relative to the economically active population rose to 64%.

Notably, the increase in new customers was led by those aged 40 and above and teenagers. Among new customers last year, those aged 40 and above accounted for 60% (age distribution of new customers: 40s 26%, 50s 23%, 60 and above 11%). For teenagers, the youth-targeted financial service 'mini' was effective. The cumulative number of 'mini' subscribers reached 1.15 million. Accordingly, the monthly active users (MAU) of the KakaoBank mobile application reached 15.23 million at the end of last year, an increase of more than 2 million compared to the previous year.

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