President Wi Sung-ho of Shinhan Card.

Shinhan Card has restructured its operations to speed up services for customers, in the latest move to turn its management strategy around under the “Flying V2” strategy.

In line with the change in its strategy, the company has opted to pursue a completely new style of mobile business so that it will be able to provide its services “on demand” by the customers. The ultimate purpose of the new management strategy is to secure a commanding position of the mobile platform of the app card market for its 4 million cardholders in Korea.

The mobile business (BU) sector was newly set up in an organizational restructuring early this year to run the Fintech R&D and platform business to solidify its leading position in the mobile market trends, and also lead the Fintech financial trends.

The credit card firm also plans to continue to expand its 4 million app card customers by expanding the mobile platform alliance and providing segregated services to customers.

Shinhan Card wants to make this the initial year when it comes to starting growth of the ecological system for the joint possession of the Big Data-based Fintech and platform.

 The company wants Big Data, mobile and Fintech to play a key role in the diversification of its businesses so that it will be able to boost its earnings at a time when the growth potential for credit card operations have been growing dimmer.

The company plans to put its Big Data Trend Research Institute to work to expand the usage of Big Data from just analyzing consumer patterns to forecasting the changes in lifestyle so that it can be used in its operation in developing a business approach.

The expansion of its global operation also is part of its new year strategy to strengthen its operation in the countries it is already in by developing products and services suitable for the respective markets under a localization strategy designed to stabilize its operations in those countries.  

The company will also look into entering emerging countries.

Shinhan Card introduced the “Lady Classic Card,” which is tailor-made for female cardholders. It was developed through an analysis of Big Data on housewives’ consumption patterns.

In the meantime, Shinhan Card plans to introduce a medium-level interest loan product in April in cooperation with SK Telecom, the credit card company said recently.

The card company said loans will be provided to those whose credit ratings are not strong enough to get card loans, but who have not fallen behind in making payments on their SK Telecom phone bills.

For example, those who pay an interest rate of more than 20 percent per year for their card loans, but have not fallen behind paying their phone bills to SK Telecom, will be qualified to get loans with interest rates as low as 16 percent.

The two companies plan to experiment with the project for three months and decide to go ahead with the new loan product project.

KB Kookmin Card was the first credit card company that launched its loan program in cooperation with a communication company in Korea in May last year with Korea Telecom.

Shinhan Card, in the meantime, signed MOUs with chauffeur service firms around the country to start its mobile chauffeur business. The projected business involves calling chauffeurs after inputting the starting point and the destination on the credit card app. The payment for the driver service will be paid automatically through the credit card as soon as they arrive at the destination, and the company may launch the service this month as it doesn’t involve anything complicated.

A model in an ad for the credit card company.(Photos:Shinhan Card)