KEB Hana Bank opened on Sept. 1 following the merger of Korea Exchange Bank and Hana Bank, becoming the largest commercial bank in Korea with total assets amounting to 337 trillion won as of the end of first half of this year.
The new entity has been focusing on bringing together the merged banks’ strong points, such as Hana Bank’s retailing sector prowess and Korea Exchange Bank’s foreign exchange business sector experience. Special attention has been paid to asset management, including private banking, to create synergy from the merger of the two banks.
The new bank has been gearing up to take advantage of Hana Bank’s outstanding private banking sector, good enough to produce many “Star PB,” which secured trust among its customers for its asset management ability. The new bank management has been trying to put into its operation the two banks’ outstanding operational sectors, the asset management for Hana Bank and the foreign exchange sector of KEB to enhance the new bank’s competitive power.
President Ham Young-joo introduced a strategy to boost the new bank’s private banking last month which. President Ham assigned a private banking specialist to every branch throughout the country so they can provide consultations to the customers with more than 30 million won worth of assets and help manage their retirement pension funds. They also consulted on tax, real estate, legal matters and other services in demand by wealthy people.
The new bank will also manage “the bank account transfer system,” which will be freed at the end of October, allowing some 230 trillion won worth of individual deposits to be withdrawn and transferred to others accounts at another bank. The commercial banks will offer various incentives to attract the funds, including the exemption of fees, discounts on interest rates and allowance of points.
KEB Hana Bank will try to sell exclusive banking commodities to those customers, such as bankbooks for funds that can be withdrawn at any time, loans on credit to individuals, installment savings accounts, among others, to attract the private deposit accounts. The Happy Know-How Bank Book issued by the bank is designed to take care of all kinds of banking businesses for individuals, from salaries to retirement pensions, so they can be used for customers’ entire lives. If the holders of those books set up installment payments, such as apartment rent, all fees will be waved for the transfer of electronic funds and the withdrawal of funds from automatic banking machines.
KEB Hana Bank also offers loans up to 150 million won at favorable interest rates for customers with steady jobs, depending on their credit ratings. The bank so far dished out 580 billion won in those loans thanks to the rising popularity of the financial product.
The bank has been doing its best to come up with new financial products and services for its customers so they can benefit directly from the synergy created by the merger of the two banks. When an exclusive credit card connected with the membership of the Hana Financial Group is introduced, the benefits from package products for its main customers would be expanded further, officials of the new bank said.
Chairman Kim Jung-tae of Hana Financial Group, 3rd R, and President Ham Young-joo of KEB Hana Bank, 3rd L, along with the heads of labor unions o f both KEB and Hana Bank and staff of the new bank raise their arms to congratulate the opening of the new bank on Sept. 1 created by the merge of the former Korea Exchange Bank and Hana Bank to be the largest commercial bank in Korea in assets.
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