NongHyup Bank President Kang Tae-young announced his 2026 management strategy goal — Becoming a bank that fuels the growth of Korea.
“We have set our 2026 management strategy goal of becoming a bank that fuels the growth of Korea,” said NongHyup Bank President Kang Tae-young in his New Year’s address on Jan. 2.
To achieve this strategic goal, President Kang outlined five key initiatives: hyper-personalized finance, productive finance, establishing a foundation for sustainable growth, protecting financial consumers, and transitioning to an agentic AI bank.
“NongHyup Bank must comprehensively examine the increasingly diverse and complex needs of our customers and present a comprehensive asset management strategy encompassing their assets, consumption, and liabilities,” Kang said, regarding hyper-personalized finance.
“We must always prioritize our customers, proactively identify their changes and needs, and provide hyper-personalized finance. By doing so, we ought to set up a financial system that brings smiles to our customers and fosters growth together.”
Regarding productive finance, he emphasized that NongHyup Bank must take the lead in promoting productive finance for a recovery and growth in the real economy.
“Strengths of NongHyup Bank’s productive finance lie in its ability to closely understand our customers’ situations and provide tailored financial solutions, leveraging our nationwide sales base and on-site communications,” Kang continued.
“Through NongHyup Bank’s unique productive finance, we must once again clearly demonstrate our identity as a bank for the Korean people with unique roots and a bank that grows alongside our customers.”
Kang explained that for sustainable growth, both profitability and soundness must be secured. “By securing profitability, NongHyup Bank can steadfastly fulfill its roles and missions for agriculture and rural communities, even amid fierce market competition. Furthermore, soundness holds the key to sustained growth. We must strengthen our non-face-to-face platforms and data-driven sales capabilities to expand our business base among key customer segments and build a robust revenue structure that ensures stable growth in both interest and non-interest income.”
Kang continued, bringing up financial consumer protection. “No matter how outstanding NongHyup Bank’s business results are, a single accident can destroy everything that the bank has built,” he said.
“We must prioritize the protection of financial consumers throughout the entire process, from product and service development to sales, and we must also meticulously prepare for information security threats.”
“AI is not simply a tool to boost work efficiency,” Kang said with respect to NongHyup Bank’s transition to an agentic AI bank. “It is a technology that fundamentally changes how we make decisions and execute work.
It is a core competency that must permeate all workflows. To ensure that AI-driven business innovation leads to customer experience innovation, NongHyup Bank must create a virtuous cycle where data and experiences accumulated in the field enhance AI performance and service quality.”
New Loan Product to support the Growth of Promising Companies
NH NongHyup Bank announced on Jan. 8 that it will launch NH Future Growth Corporate Loan to support the growth of promising companies and promote a major transformation in productive finance, on Jan. 9.
NH Future Growth Corporate Loan supports corporations and small business owners subject to corporate screening in future growth industries, such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, biotechnology and robotics designated by NongHyup Bank.
The bank plans to flexibly adjust target industries based on changes market needs.
To examine growth potential, NongHyup Bank has established NH Future Growth Rating, a new evaluation system that strengthens non-financial factors such as technological prowess certification and technology evaluation ratings.
While offering a preferential interest rate of up to 2.3 percentage points, the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio will be increased by up to 30 percentage points for facility financing outside the Seoul metropolitan area, in line with a balanced regional growth strategy.
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