[Issue Interview] Shinhan Builds a Defense Line for 'Dementia Money'... Vice President Hyunjoo Park Says "Prevention Is Key"

Hyunju Park, Chief Consumer Officer (CCO) and Head of the Consumer Protection Group at Shinhan Bank, is a rare example of a long-serving executive in the financial sector. Upon securing her reappointment at the end of last year, she earned the title of the longest-serving CCO in the industry. Since 2023, she has also served as the newly established Head of Consumer Protection at Shinhan Financial Group, dedicating herself to embedding a consumer protection DNA throughout the entire group.

She leads all areas of consumer protection, from handling customer complaints and building a complete sales system to preventing financial crimes. Recently, her main focus has been on the protection of "Dementia Money" (assets belonging to dementia patients).

Hyunju Park, Executive Vice President of Consumer Protection Group at Shinhan Bank, is interviewed by The Asia Business Daily on the 14th at Shinhan Bank headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang

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"Recently, 1 in 10 seniors over the age of 65 are affected by dementia, leading to a rapid increase in the scale of Dementia Money. The vulnerability in decision-making during financial transactions is rising, and financial crimes targeting this vulnerability are increasing as well. I believe we must view Dementia Money as a new consumer protection issue," she stated.

Park explained her focus on Dementia Money during an interview with The Asia Business Daily on April 14. Earlier this year, Shinhan Bank launched the "Dementia Customer Financial Protection Task Force (TF)" and placed Park in charge. She oversees seven departments, including Consumer Protection, Customer Platform, and Senior Asset Management, and is accelerating efforts to build a strong financial defense line for dementia customers.

The first area Park addressed after the TF's launch was strengthening the function of physical service counters. She said, "We operate 'customized care counters' at each branch for vulnerable groups such as the elderly and people with disabilities. At these counters, we've enhanced our response system to closely monitor customers showing signs of dementia. Moving forward, we will introduce 'guidelines for responding to dementia customers' to improve the professionalism of on-site responses."

The related product lineup has also been refined. The "Dementia Safe Trust" and Shinhan Life's "Dementia Diagnosis Insurance" are representative products. In particular, the insurance product is being upgraded to reflect customer feedback. Park explained, "Listening to on-site feedback, customers showed more interest in practical 'treatment' rather than diagnosis benefits. We plan to relaunch the product by expanding coverage to focus on treatment."

The core of protecting Dementia Money lies in systems that preemptively block financial crimes. Park emphasized, "With voice phishing, funds can be transferred out in an instant, making it very difficult to provide relief after the fact. That's why preemptive blocking is most important."

To prevent such incidents, Shinhan Bank is upgrading its abnormal transaction detection system to be specialized for the elderly, including those with dementia. Park stated, "Currently, our ATM abnormal behavior detection system provides guidance in cases of suspected voice phishing transactions. We plan to further refine behavioral pattern scenarios for those aged 65 and older, and aim to implement the enhanced system as early as June, or at the latest, within the year."

Park added, "Dementia is not merely an issue for the elderly. It is a structural problem where the method of financial management changes according to the customer's condition. We plan to also establish a system for switching asset management to trust-based management depending on health status, so that our protection-based services can safeguard both dementia customers and their families."

Hyunju Park, Vice President of Consumer Protection Group at Shinhan Bank, is being interviewed by The Asia Business Daily at the Shinhan Bank headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul on the 14th. Photo by Jinhyung Kang

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Since taking on the additional role of Head of Consumer Protection at the holding company in 2023, Park cites the establishment of an integrated group-wide system as her most meaningful achievement. She explained, "Three years ago (2023), when consumer protection work was promoted to an official division within the holding company, its importance across the organization began to be emphasized. The most crucial change has been eliminating capability gaps among affiliates and embedding consumer protection as a core culture."

With the establishment of a control tower within the holding company, the bank's robust consumer protection system quickly spread to affiliates such as securities and insurance. One representative example is the system that temporarily restricts sales by employees who receive low scores in internal monitoring assessments. The bank's process for complying with the duty to explain under the Financial Consumer Protection Act, which it pioneered, has been adopted by all affiliates, raising the group's overall consumer protection capabilities. Park reflected, "Without the consumer protection division at the holding company level, it would have been difficult to drive this kind of company-wide shift in awareness."

More recently, the group has significantly strengthened its inter-affiliate information-sharing system to maximize the detection network for financial crimes such as voice phishing. Having been designated as an innovative financial service by the Financial Services Commission, this system has been in full operation since the 10th. Park explained, "Previously, when funds were transferred to phishing organizations via card loans, there were limits to our response because information-sharing among affiliates was blocked. Now, as soon as suspicious patterns are detected by card companies, preemptive transaction blocking can be triggered by linking with the bank's abnormal transaction detection system." The group plans to expand information-sharing to include securities and insurance in the second half of the year.

Concluding the interview, Park firmly stated her belief that consumer protection should never be a matter of "competition." Although competition for market share among financial institutions is fierce, she believes that, at least in consumer protection, all parties should freely share their expertise. She stressed, "Consumer protection is not something that can be achieved by any one institution alone; the entire financial sector needs to work together. Only when all business areas openly share their best practices and apply good examples will the blind spots in financial consumer protection truly disappear."

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