Chairman Lim Young-rok of KB Financial Group.(Photo:Courtesy of KB Financial)

Chairman Lim Young-rok of KB Financial Group said the group will still go after a securities firm such as Hyundai Securities or Dongyang Securities.

In his New Year’s message, Chairman Lim said the group should continue to think about M&As in the securities business sector to diversify its business portfolio, now tilted one-sidedly toward the banking sector.

“All officers and staff of the group should act as though they are owners of the company they work for and always think about the progress and harmony of their company in terms of the prosperity of the group,” the chairman said in the message issued to the 25,000 officers and staff members working for the affiliates of the financial group.

Last year was not so good for the group amid the slow down in the financial market with profits falling and damaging the health of the group, especially with the scandals at the Tokyo, Japan branch that rocked Kookmin Bank. “The incident should never happen again,” the chairman said, with a warning that the financial environment for this year won’t be as good as expected because the global economy is not able to find its normal pace of growth yet.

“Despite the not-so-bright outlook the group should be reborn as a sound and healthy financial group through management dependent on principles and basics,” Lim said.

“We ought to strengthen the retail banking sector, the strongest sector in our operation, to maximize the operational results for this year. Our growth should be dependent on sound loans and proper earnings margins from those loans to boost our profits.

“We ought to try to achieve healthy growth in profits by boosting the competitive power of each business sector, especially the securities, insurance, and asset management sectors by expanding the customer base and tightening management.

“We ought to let our non-banking sectors diversify their profit-earning structures, especially through M&As in the securities business sector,” Lim said.

“At the same time,” he said, “the group should be ready to make preparations to tide over any financial crisis that the group might face this year. We ought to be careful in issuing loans, very selective in sorting out risky borrowers by sharply analyzing their potential risks to make our credit culture sound.”

Lim also said the group has been engaged in changing the systems and processes to deal with customers more effectively in a bid to strengthen its competitive power. 

“We also have to change other systems such as the reimbursement system and the manpower employment system, and reorganize our channels and the expense structure. We have to continue to improve the productivity for the years ahead along with improve the public’s trust in us because a financial operation depends on the public trust, which is the best value for us. We have to recover the public trust we lost in recent months,” he said.

“We also have to find the companies in need of funds, although they have good ideas and technologies to spur the Creative Economy so that they can get their businesses moving.

“We also have to draw up revolutionary ideas for tightening our internal management and ethical operations and continue to push them,” the chairman said.