Vice President Kim Ju-ha of NH Financial Holdings Co. was promoted to president of NH Bank and officially installed in his new position on Jan. 2 in a ceremony. The new president said in his inaugural address that he will lead the bank to be a frontrunner in the nation’s financial market by strengthening its competitive power.
He said he will manage the bank based on a strategy to recover of trust of the customers, strengthen the role of the cooperatives as profit centers, tighten risk management, make working at the bank a pleasure for its employees, and the creation of synergy with other units of the National Agriculture Cooperatives Federation (NACF).
The new CEO joined the National Agricultural Cooperatives Federation (NACF) in 1981 and has held various important positions including head of the Credit System Team, manager of the Namdaemun Branch, manager of the Credit Department, manager of the Financial Planning Department, and vice president of NH Financial Holdings.
The new president said the bank has been able to consolidate its organization successfully since its launch two years ago, but now it must boost its competitive edge in the financial market through an expansion of non-interest income by strengthening synergy with its mother company and building its IT system.
Kim also said he is proud of every officer and staff member of the bank because they have the capacity for competition with their counterparts at any rival bank, adding that he will try to find a way for them to show off 100 percent of their potential while discharging their duties with the bank.
Kim said 2014 looms as a key year for the bank and the financial holding company because it is the year for making progress following a two-year period for creating stability for the new business organization.
Kim said he will build brick by brick as his predecessor has done to strengthen the organization and boost its competitiveness in the financial market.
The new CEO plans to help make NH Financial Holdings one of the five strongest financial holdings companies in Korea by strengthening NH Bank’s performance. At one time the bank was about the same size as those of its rival commercial banks, but they got bigger through mergers with other commercial banks such as Chohung, Seoul, Commercial, and Cheil, while NH Bank stood still.
The new CEO said that because the bank has been helping farmers, it has not been easy for it to build up its capital, take risks, and seek profits. The bank has yet to learn much of the risk management know-how and had to pay a lot for that, looking back on past operations. The bank still has non-performing assets from the days of the Lehman Brothers’ crisis to write off, which is a big burden for the bank, Kim said.
But he thinks the bank’s risk management system is not that bad since it meets the guidelines laid down by the financial authorities. Since the arrival of Chairman Lim Jong-yong at NH Financial Holdings, the bank has benchmarked those of the commercial banks with working risk control systems and checked what’s wrong with the system and its operation. Starting next year each NH financial affiliate will design and implement its own plan to operate the risk management system.
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