President Wi Sung-ho of Shinhan Card has been named to serve another term as head of the credit card firm. The Shinhan Financial Group’s Affiliate Management Committee approved the extension of the Shinhan Card CEO Wi’s term on Aug. 18 as his current term expires on Aug. 26.
Wi began to serve his first term as the CEO of the credit card firm on Aug. 26, 2013, which was extended for a year on Aug. 26, last year. The Executive Recommendation Committee of Shinhan Card must approve the extension to make it official. He will serve until Aug. 26, 2017.
By getting the extension to serve another year as the CEO of the credit card firm, he became a candidate for chairman of the Shinhan Financial Group, with the credit card firm being one of the key affiliates of the financial group.
Sources close to the financial group speculated that Wi and President Cho Yong-byung of Shinhan Bank are two of the most likely candidates to succeed Chairman Han Dong-woo of the group whose term is up in March next year and is slated to retire.
Wi, an economics graduate of Korea University, has been given credit for changing his company’s management style to a “Big Data management” with preemptive measures.
“We believe we can satisfy our customers by sharing our sincerity and our best,” said Wi in a statement on the homepage of the company. Whenever we put our heads together to make decisions, we do our best to benefit our customers after thinking twice from their viewpoint.
“In addition, we take heads under the slogan ‘Compassionate Finance,’ which means ‘we benefit the world through the true support of finance,’” he said. “We lead 'Compassionate Finance' from the front for growing up with the society in different ways such as launching the world first braille card and managing the first donation portal site called 'Areumin' among financial companies.”
Online fund sales based on around 2 trillion won worth of points are likely to be a great benefit to card users as a means to manage their wealth, as they boost the use of cards in other ways than going to the movies and restaurants.
One Shinhan Card holder said it would be a great help if those points can be used like cash for investment. He had accumulated around 30 points from the use of his Shinhan card.
If credit card firms cut their fees substantially, fund sales by banks and securities firms will heat up, with cardholders turning to invest in the funds.
Shinhan Card has been working on developing an online platform that can sell funds, settle payments, shopping and pay off investments of financial products. The credit card firm is fighting off an offensive by various ICT firms.
Most recently, the card firm changed the name of the mobile simple settlement service to “Shinhan Fan Pay” to rebuild its mobile network as part of its ongoing move to reform its operational structure. The company signed cooperative agreements with a number of top-class firms in each of their industries, including GS Retail, Homeplus, SPC and Dongbu Non-Life Insurance Co.
The company intends to put its online products on the market to be handled in the mobile set up as part of its strategy to have all new products handled in the “Finance inside the Palm.”
The card company decided to benchmark Alibaba, a top online commercial firm in China, which introduced “Wia Bao,” a money market fund in June 2013, which returns to the consumer the profits earned from their funds left over after paying for their online shopping in their accounts (Ali Pay).
Shinhan Card announced on Nov. 9, 2015, that it successfully demonstrated its Once Card service using KONA I's NFC-based smart card solution at the CARTES SECURE CONNEXIONS held in Paris on Nov. 4 to 6.
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Shinhan Card Headquarters.
