A model shows a smartphone that can use an app to make payments at shops and stores that have the smartphone payment settlement agreements with Kookmin Bank.(Photo:KB)

Kookmin Bank has taken up Fintech and Creative Finance as key operational strategies in the wake of a declaration to recover its position as a leading bank in Korea. Yoon Jong-kyoo, chairman of KB Financial Group and CEO of Kookmin Bank, has been directly involved with the bank’s operation, the handling of Fintech and Creative Finance in particular, to show the importance attached to the new financial businesses. The chairman has been considering setting up an exclusive unit to take charge of the operation of those two banking sectors, along with hiring more engineering graduates, and bank policies to get closer to the IT firms for cooperation and tie-ups.

Fintech is being pushed by the financial group. The group plans to invest around 15 billion won in small- and medium-sized firms, with Fintech technologies and intellectual property rights. KB Instrument, an affiliate of the group, has an investment team made of five experts in the area, and the team will take charge of making the investments. Target areas include mobile remittance financial services (2 billion won); mobile financial security (5 billion won); mobile transaction and certificate system (4 billion won); data analysis and the projection; and financial technology based on algorithms (4 billion won).

The bank also plans to set up the KB Fintech Center so that any bank or credit card companies that want to have a Fintech deal with Kookmin Bank only has to register with the center once and doesn’t have to visit the bank again. KB Kookmin Card signed a deal to cooperate on payment settlement with NHN Entertainment.

Kookmin plans to go big on Fintech has been witnessed in new hires last November when it gave extra points to job applicants with engineering degrees. Its need for engineering graduates increased because more of its units need to develop programs for financial consultations with customers and Big Data collection. The percentage of new employees with engineering degree at Kookmin Bank rose to 16.6 percent in 2014 compared to 11 percent in the preceding year.

Kookmin Bank is a core affiliate of KB Financial Group. The bank set up a team to handle the Fintech, or technology finance, last August. The team provides companies with Fintech and other support. It also helps them with idle land and environmental support to carry out research on Fintech. The bank also changed the IT planning unit to the digital finance unit, while the Fintech team was created under the smart finance unit.

The bank has also been at work to mobilize private banking by taking advantage of Fintech with Big Data. Such data includes customers’ earnings; profession; scale of assets; details of transactions; and age. The bank plans to provide the financial products developed under the strategies drawn up with the Big Data to customers through smartphones and other mobile equipment in real time.

From January, the bank started selling the “KB Bank Wallet Bank Book,” an online bank book, to customers. It now plans to expand cooperation with Daum Kakao and Naver’s Line Pay to spur its online payment settlement system.

Kookmin Bank has also introduced deposit and loan products for youths, under which the bank will set aside a percentage of the interest charged on the “KB Creative Finance Deposit,” which was put on the market in August last year on its maturity. The accumulated funds will go to support the training of personnel with the Creative Talents and for youths to launch their businesses.