Chairman Kim Yong-hwan of NH Financial Group.(Photos:NH Financial Group)

NH Financial Group plans to quadruple its annual profit by 2020 by expanding its overseas operations and at the same time strengthen its asset management sector, the group said recently.

The group will also expand the fusion operations involving bank, securities and insurance affiliates for mutual growth of the group’s affiliates under the 2020 Mid-term Strategy that the group announced on Sept. 7. The goal of the strategy is for the group to become the leader of the financial industry in Korea by 2020 by posting the highest profit among financial groups in Korea.

The strategy is also designed to boost the group’s assets to 380 trillion won in 2020 from 311 trillion won as of the end of last year with annual profit rising to 2 trillion won, which is four times the current annual profit, which is around 500 billion won.

The financial group has six objectives on the way to meet its targets in 2020. The first is expanding overseas operations; second is strengthening competitive capacity for asset management; third is reform of the business platforms; fourth, the company would like to lead fusion and complex financing; fifth, advance the risk control management; and sixth: strengthen the group’s competitive power.

The group will start its overseas expansion in China, Indonesia and Myanmar and other countries in Southeast Asia. The group will sign an agreement with Myanmar on starting businesses related to insurance and small loans, while the group’s securities affiliate NH Securities and Hong Kong subsidiary will get together to focus on strengthening their operations with banks and insurance firms in host countries, as well as making package-type joint investments in development projects in the Southeast Asian region.  

The group also plans to strengthen its asset management sector by training 1,700 of its financial consultants, retirement planners and market specialists to lead the market. NH Financial Holdings will take charge of retirement planning, strategies for customers and lead the development of package products and services. The holding company will build a system to analyze the results of asset management operation and also build a system to oversee the outside trust management of its assets.

The group will also work for the creation of synergy among its affiliates in such areas as securities, banking and insurance by expanding their joint operations through joint outlets, especially, in the Seoul area to boost their competitive power.

The group will also touch up its Fintech operation to come up with new financial business areas by mixing information technologies with finance, and also set out to create synergy between financial sectors and the agricultural economic sector of NACF.

The group will see all financial transactions provided to the agricultural sector of the NACF such as auditing, realization, and other business areas will have their competitive power enhanced. The group will provide training to the personnel manning those sectors to let them become more professional to make the sectors more competitive. The rise of NH Financial Group to the nation’s fourth-largest has not only reshaped the local financial landscape, but also wowed critics who had been skeptical of whether it was capable of such a feat. 

In the recent process of acquiring Woori Investment & Securities, Woori Aviva Life Insurance and Woori Savings Bank, the group has beaten Woori Financial Group in terms of assets.

“NH Financial is now ready to compete with the industry’s top players,” said the NH Financial Group chairman.

Despite the rise to stardom, NH stresses that the company will always stand out from its peers due to its roots in the agricultural sector.

“We have a long-standing relationship with local farmers that has formed the bedrock of our current nationwide business network that still places the highest priority on ordinary Koreans,” said Cha Jong-in, an NH Financial spokesman.