Woori Financial Group Allows Insider Reporting via External Channels... Up to 1 Billion KRW Reward

Reflecting Internal Control Experience in Branch Manager Promotion Evaluation
Expanding Internal Control Personnel and Deploying to Sales Sites
Adding External Channels for Insider Reporting to Increase Anonymity

Woori Financial Group will provide a reward of up to 1 billion KRW for preventing financial accidents through insider reporting and will reflect internal control experience in branch manager promotion evaluations. The group also plans to conduct thorough risk reviews when pursuing new businesses and expand the deployment of dedicated internal control personnel across all sales sites.

On the 20th, Woori Financial held a press briefing at its headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul, regarding internal control innovation measures. It announced, "To raise employees' awareness of internal control, all employees will be required to perform internal control-related tasks such as compliance monitoring, risk management, and financial consumer protection at least once." Even employees not in dedicated internal control departments will be assigned to branch audit duties for 6 months to 1 year, allowing all staff to gain experience in internal control tasks. Going forward, internal control experience such as compliance monitoring and branch auditing will be reflected in branch manager promotion evaluations.

Starting in the second half of the year, internal control training will be conducted for all employees. Jeon Jae-hwa, Compliance Officer (Senior Executive Vice President) of Woori Bank, explained, "Based on the 'Internal Control Training Roadmap' established in June, which reflects the characteristics of all group employees by rank and job, customized training will begin in the second half of the year."

The group also announced plans to expand the deployment of dedicated internal control personnel. The existing internal control personnel, previously only in the bank’s headquarters organization, will be expanded to all frontline sales headquarters. To this end, the number of personnel will increase from 21 group compliance officers to a total of 54 by adding 33 internal control branch managers (at branch manager level). In early this month’s regular personnel reshuffle, the holding company assigned two IT internal control personnel within the compliance organization, and the bank plans to elevate the inspection office to an inspection headquarters and establish a digital inspection team.

The internal control review process for new business initiatives will also be strengthened. Jeon explained, "Previously, risk was reviewed by second-line departments such as risk, compliance, and consumer-related departments, but now risk must be reviewed by first-line departments from the early stages of new business development." The veto power of the compliance officer will also be codified. For example, if the compliance officer deems the risk of a new product high during review, their opinion must be reflected, and the launch postponed. This aims to prevent internal control from weakening due to sales priority.

To eliminate blind spots, the anonymity of insider reporting will be strengthened. Jeon said, "We will allow internal employees to report through external channels as well, to cover internal control gaps that may have been overlooked." Although reporting is possible through the company intranet, concerns about identity exposure have led to passive reporting, which this measure aims to improve. By accessing the external anonymous reporting service ‘Helpline’ and submitting records of internal control violations on the ‘Woori Financial Group’ page, Woori Financial Holdings will review and respond with results. Depending on investigation outcomes and considering the amount of financial accident loss prevention, a reward of up to 1 billion KRW may be granted to the reporter by the reward review committee (for ‘Helpline’ reporters, rewards are paid only if identity disclosure is desired). If disciplinary action is necessary, related subsidiaries will be notified. Internal control improvement idea submissions will be accepted year-round.

A Woori Financial Group official stated, "There are complaints from sales sites that internal control has been strengthened excessively, but internal control is an indispensable matter that cannot be compromised for the company’s survival," adding, "We will not lower our vigilance in achieving the ‘100% perfect internal control,’ not ‘99.9%,’ emphasized by Chairman Lim Jong-ryong of Woori Financial."

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