KakaoBank Launches 'Individual Business Banking'... First Step into Corporate Finance

[Asia Economy Reporter Eunju Lee] KakaoBank has taken its first step into the corporate finance market by launching banking services for individual business owners.

On the 27th, KakaoBank held a ‘Individual Business Owner Banking Press Talk (Press Talk, press conference)’ to introduce individual business owner accounts, check and partnership credit cards, and loan products.

Scheduled for release on the 1st of next month, KakaoBank’s individual business owner banking covers not only loan products but also deposit products (accounts) and payment services (cards). Users can access both personal banking and individual business owner banking through a single KakaoBank app without installing a separate app.

Lee Byung-su, head of the Individual Business Owner Studio team who oversaw the overall launch of individual business owner banking, said, “Just as KakaoBank has bridged the 'interest rate cliff' between high-credit and low-credit borrowers through inclusive finance such as expanding loans for low-to-medium credit borrowers, we focused on enhancing convenience and benefits for individual business owners under the direction of ‘creating a good bank for individual business owners.’”

Individual business owner banking focuses on improving convenience in managing business funds and financial transactions. First, individual business owner accounts can be opened quickly and conveniently using scraping and public MyData without submitting separate documents. This eliminates the hassle of having to install a separate app for business owners or visit branches to submit various documents for account opening.

Specialized check cards and partnership credit cards for individual business owners will also be launched. The check card is designed to turn the frequent spending of business owners for business operations into benefits. It offers enhanced spending benefits in essential business sectors such as fuel, telecommunications, rentals, and overseas expenses. The credit card, launched in partnership with Samsung Card, is the ‘KakaoBank Individual Business Owner Samsung Card,’ which provides a 1% discount benefit unconditionally at all domestic merchants.

KakaoBank also announced plans for individual business owner unsecured loans. Any individual business owner who is registered and operating can apply. The maximum loan amount is 100 million KRW, with an interest rate starting at 5.491% (as of the 26th). The loan term ranges from a minimum of 1 year to a maximum of 10 years (extendable annually up to 10 years), and repayment methods can be chosen between lump-sum repayment at maturity or equal principal installment repayment. Early repayment penalties are fully waived.

KakaoBank plans to gradually launch guaranteed loans and secured loan products following this individual business owner unsecured loan product. They also intend to pursue policy fund loans provided through agreements with public institutions and local governments to further enhance interest rate competitiveness. The plan is to find and offer the optimal loan available to all individual business owner customers through a single KakaoBank app.

On this day, KakaoBank also revealed plans to advance its credit evaluation model to comprehensively assess the business capabilities of individual business owners. KakaoBank plans to design industry-specific specialized model structures and apply various data accordingly to maximize the utilization of business owner data. They will develop an independent alternative credit evaluation model for individual business owners using data from six institutions, over 4,300 variables, and more than 5.27 million pseudonymized combined data records. In addition to evaluating the business viability of the workplace, they will utilize diverse data such as payment information from the Korea Federation of SMEs and transfer information from the Korea Financial Telecommunications & Clearings Institute.

Lee Byung-su, head of the Individual Business Owner Studio team, said, “We have prepared products and services that provide practical help to the financial lives of individual business owners through a complete mobile single app service,” adding, “Having launched after long preparation, we will become the platform with the most individual business owner customers and the most widely used by individual business owners.”

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