President Lee Kwang-goo of Woori Bank plans to boost the market value of the bank to privatize the bank as soon as possible with the globalization and the development of the Fintech banking the surest way to do it.
Last year, the bank expanded the number of its overseas branches, banking outlets and wholly owned subsidiaries to 200 with the last one to open being a branch in Myanmar on Nov. 16, and this year, President Lee plans to step up the bank’s moves to expand its overseas branches or banking outlets around the world to look for new growth engines overseas with the domestic financial market being saturated due to low interest rates stifling the financial institutions further growth.
This year, the bank projects to its assets overseas would grow to $22 billion with 300 branches or outlets handling the assets in the financial markets in Southeast Asia.
The bank plans to focus its operation in the region with non-banking financial activities such as dishing out small amount of loans, savings bank style of providing loans and installment loans as the region has yet to have the commercial banking institutions in full operation.
The bank also would not rule out the M&As of local financial institutions to speed up the formation of its operational base and its localization. In December last year, the bank took over 51 percent stake in the Wealth Development Bank in the Philippines.
The bank will not focus its operation only on opening its branches overseas, but cooperate its overseas operation with its Internet professional bank, “Weebee Bank” and Woori Card.
For its overseas operation, it will focus on Fintech and on and off channels at the same time to make profits in its overseas operation so that its overseas earnings will take up around 20 percent of the bank’s total earnings this year from around 17 percent.
CEO Lee said the bank will have around 500 overseas branches in 2020 with total asset of $50 billion to make the bank a leading bank in Asia.
The bank will maintain its lead in the Fintech area by operating its Weebee Bank in full all the time as the first mobile bank in the banking industry. The bank was the first one to set up a unit to take charge of the Fintech business for the bank, which would include the settlement function in association with SNS and other diverse financial services as a platform. The bank will use the platform to help operate “K-Bank” as successfully as it can as the bank got the preliminary license from the financial authorities to set up and operate an Internet bank.
The bank will continue to support the establishment of Fintech start-ups through Woori Fintech Null Pum Lot, a Fintech consultation channel and Woori Fintech Sharing Lot. The bank will also have its Investment Banking Unit to make investments in SMEs in the Fintech sector.
CEO Lee said what we are about to do is to develop a new model for an Internet professional bank and have it operate both at home and abroad. He said he plans to run the bank so that it will have a strong corporate culture and maximize its profit, not in profit share, but in the rate of profit increase.
He said he will see the bank conduct a public relations for its upgraded market value, which is why he divided the bank’s operation system into three large groups, domestic, overseas and operation support with the heads of each group responsible for performance of their groups. Lee said he will take charge of the bank’s public relations programs both at home and abroad so that the public well informed of the bank’s operations, in particular, its performance results. He pointed out that the share price of the bank’s shares fell to 9,180 per share on Dec. 24 despite the fact that the bank’s Q3 results saw operating profit rising 40 percent to 396.1 billion won year-on-year, although the share price rose to 11,200 won per share on April 24, possibly due to the lack of public relations for the bank’s performance.
