Chairman Lee Soon-woo of Woori Financial Group with a family during the group’s social 

service work at a farm village near Seoul.

Chairman Lee Soon-woo of the Woori Financial Group as well as president of Woori Bank said the bank is trying its utmost to expand the number of its individual customers to 20 million, which could come next year, making the bank the third one with that many individual customers in the history of commercial banks in Korea.

Woori Bank conducted a promotional program from July 1 to Sept. 30 to ensure that the bank will carry out its second half strategy without a hitch.

The strategy calls for expanding the number of new customers, especially the customers for its fund and credit card businesses, led by the Individual Customer Strategy Department to promote the increase in the number of individual customers for three months.

The bank had 16.17 million individual customers in 2010, 17 million at the end of 2012, and 18.74 million as of the end of this past August, or close to 20 million if corporate customers were added.

In order to increase the number of individual customers, the bank divided up the Marketing Department into three parts to make the strategy for attracting individual customers more efficient and strong.

Kookmin Bank has the largest number of individual customers, thanks to the merger with Korea Housing Bank in 2001, with 27.86 million as of the end of August this year. Shinhan Bank exceeded 20 million individual customers in September 2011 and has since risen to 21.86 million.

Hana Bank has 9.37 million individual customers, while the Korea Exchange Bank, an affiliate of the Hana Financial Group, has 7.68 million individual customers, which would total over 17 million if combined with those of Hana Bank.

Chairman Lee is pictured with officers and staff of the Woori Financial Group visiting a farm 

village to help the farmers with their rice harvesting.

In the meantime, the bank has had a fall out with its union over the strategy to increase individual customers, with the union asking for smaller target numbers and to leave the promotional activities to each unit so that it would not interfere too much with normal daily operations.

Financial sources said the number of individual customers for a bank doesn’t always guarantee an increase in profit for the bank, but it has a symbolic meaning for a bank’s public image.

Woori Bank was established in 1899 in Seoul and conducted general banking business during the modernization and industrialization era. Today, it has grown to a be leading provider of financial services in the industry with the support of its customers.

This support has been reflected in a number of recent awards. Woori Bank was proud to receive an award for customer credit protection and to be recognized as the best financial service provider of small finance in 2012.

“We are to offer greater convenience and benefits to you through our customer-specific products and services and smart banking services suitable for a digital financial service leader,” Chairman Lee said in his CEO statement on the bank’s website.

Ethical management has been standardized and required by the ISO in the United States and other advanced countries advancing “Standardized Ethical Management.” Recognition of ethical management has been expanding in order to survive in an increasingly competitive global era due to ethics crises such as Enron and Worldcom. 

An “Ethical management evaluation model and evaluation index” has been developed that fits Korea’s environment in order to establish and expand ethical management.