IBK announced the establishment of the IBK Changgong Europe Desk on Oct. 8.
This is IBK Changgong’s second overseas base, following the opening of the IBK Changgong Silicon Valley Desk in September 2023.
The IBK Changgong Europe Desk is located in the Korea-EU Cooperation Building within the European Research Center of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) in Saarland, Germany.
It will serve as a bridgehead for innovative startups looking to expand into Europe.
Kim In-tae, head of IBK’s Innovation Finance Group, Jürgen Barke, deputy prime minister of Saarland, Germany, Thomas Schuck, head of the Saarland Economic Promotion Corporation and Kim Soo-hyun, director of the KIST’s European Research Center, celebrated the opening of the IBK Changgong Europe Desk in a ceremony held in honor of hanging an IBK Changgong Europe Desk signboard on Oct. 8.
Kim In-tae, head of IBK's Innovative Finance Group, poses for a photo with guests in a ceremony held in honor of hanging an IBK Changgong Europe Desk signboard in Germany on Oct. 8.
In June last year, IBK inked a business agreement with the government of Saarland, Germany, and the KIST to help innovative Korean startups successfully enter Europe and commercialize locally.
The bank pledged to provide services such as consulting on the establishment of local legal entities, participation in support programs for them in Saarland, Germany, and connections to local networks.
“Following the Silicon Valley Desk, we are diversifying our efforts to support Korean startups to go overseas,” Kim In-tae said. “We will not stop making our efforts to help innovative Korean startups go global.”
“We are looking forward to the unlimited potential of companies, which IBK Changgong is supporting,” Jürgen Barke said. “We will maximize synergies out of each institution’s global infrastructure and local commercialization support experience.”
General Support Measures for Small Business Owners
IBK announced on Oct. 8 that it will implement comprehensive support measures to resolve funding difficulties and improve business conditions for small businesses tussling with an economic downturn and high interest rates.
The comprehensive support measures for small businesses range from supporting small businesses to ease the burden of financing costs such as lowering loan interest rates, non-financial support to boost small businesses’ competitiveness and ease management burdens.
To ease the burden of financing costs for small businesses, IBK will invest 130 billion won in its own resources to extend an interest rate cut period for small business loan products supported by the government for another year.
In addition, the bank will provide 28 billion won for loans through the establishment of a dedicated fund for small businesses — 14 billion won for preferential interest rates on savings products and 14 billion won for interest cuts through debt restructurings.
Upgrading IBK BOX Platform Services
IBK announced on Oct. 24 that it has upgraded its management support platform “IBK BOX” to expand digital support for small and medium-sized enterprises.
IBK BOX stands for IBK Business Operation eXpert. It is an integrated platform that digitally supports various tasks of businesses such as financing, business management and sales.
Its main services include “Loan Channel BOX,” an O2O service for corporate loan applications, and “BOX POS,” a mobile app POS machine.
The “IBK BOX” Service include “Account Book Management,” “the Corporate PR Center,” and “Biz-Talk.
“IBK BOX” can be reached by searching for ‘IBK BOX’ on an Internet search portal or by entering ‘main.ibkbox.net’ in the Internet address bar of a PC or mobile phone.
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