[Start人] Wiconomy "Youth Preparing for Independence Who Can't Even Pay Electricity Bills... Will Enhance Financial Utilization Skills"

Interview with Lee Young-woong, CEO of Weconomy
"Financial counseling should be received regularly"
"Especially necessary for vulnerable groups"
Aiming to solve social issues and generate profit

‘Wiconomy’ is a social impact startup that provides financial education to young adults who have left child protection facilities such as orphanages and childcare centers. Lee Young-woong, CEO of Wiconomy (pictured), recently said in an interview with Asia Economy, "Most youth aging out of care (young adults preparing for independence) enter society with little understanding of money."

"These youth leave care with about 5 to 10 million won in hand. Since they have never handled such a large amount of money before, some fall victim to scams. I have even seen cases where children lost all their money after being deceived by their biological parents who contacted them at the right time. Because they have no experience with automatic payments, they often fail to pay their phone bills or electricity bills on time, resulting in overdue payments."

Since 2019, Wiconomy has focused on educating young adults preparing for independence about the concept of consumption and developing their financial skills to increase assets over two years. Before founding the company, CEO Lee worked at a financial planning (FP) firm and emphasized the importance of financial education. "Financial counseling should be received regularly, like health checkups. This is because financial plans need to be made, reviewed, and adjusted throughout one’s life. Since it is not taught at home or school, it is even more necessary for vulnerable groups."

Recognizing Wiconomy’s experience in providing financial counseling to socially disadvantaged groups, it was selected last year as the operator of the ‘Seoul Young Tech’ project promoted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. Together with the Korea FPSB, Wiconomy delivers proper consumption and expenditure management methods to 10,000 young people aged 39 and under living in Seoul, helping them achieve economic independence. During the COVID-19 pandemic, counseling was conducted remotely via phone or video chat. Recently, Wiconomy joined Hana Bank’s financial education program, a research project that provides financial counseling to 30 young adults preparing for independence over three years to assess its effectiveness.

CEO Lee stated, "We will continue to build expertise in providing education and consulting with social value to adolescents and young adults," adding, "We plan to collaborate with other companies to prepare diverse educational content." He expressed his ambition, saying, "We aim to grow into an edutech company that solves social problems while pursuing profit."

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