Chairman Kim Jung-tae of Hana Financial Group.

Hana Financial Group classifies expenses for corporate social responsibility (CSR) as investments as they attempt to nurture social values. The fourth-largest financial group in the nation by assets says that CSR can contribute to enhancing corporate value as well as social development. Hana views its social responsibility with a long-term perspective based on its ideas and philosophy.

Hana Financial says the group’s CSR activities activate a virtuous cycle in the company providing practical social services, ensuring employees’ loyalty for the group, and upgrading the corporate image for clients.

First of all, Hana Financial focuses on children, who will lead society in the future, and will become the main consumers in the next generation. The group helps children understand the financial industry by running two education programs — “Economic education musical for children” and “Financial class for teenagers.” 

The former is famous for its unique structure, which comprises dance, songs, and economic stories, while the latter has attracted many teenage participants with interesting stories about the economy, currency, and financial services companies. 

Hana Financial educated 23,000 students through the programs in 2008, and launched an economic education website titled “Hana City (www.hanacity.com)” to provide them with more systematic information in May 2008 for the first time in the industry. Hana Financial also offers trust products, which were designed to make customers donate their interest to social programs. 

The group generated a total of 9.3 billion won for 2,560 social welfare centers by 28 times since 1971 by promoting the products. Those funds have been used for scholarships and lunch expenses for students from low-income families. In September 2008, Hana Financial launched the “Hana Hope Foundation” to support entrepreneur funds for the underprivileged. 

The foundation provides loans without the need for guarantees and collateral. Hana also opened the Hana Smile Microcredit Bank in December 2009 to provide microcredit services for people with low-credit.

The group’s CSR activities were extended beyond nationality, reaching its arms out to expatriates here. The group opened foreigner-specialized centers in their branches, where non-Koreans can consult employees of the group in their own language.

It also launched Hana N Plaza branches around large foreign communities, which provide banking services for expat workers everyday including weekends in their own language. Discounted remittance fees are available for non-Korean residents in cooperation with local lenders in Vietnam and Mongolia. It also issues expat-specialized debit cards for those who need them. 

Hana Financial runs the “Hana Kids of Asia” program for children from multicultural families. Kids from those households can learn the culture and language of their parents’ motherland through the program. 

Some 45,000 books written in Vietnamese were published by Hana Financial to allow people from the Southeast Asian country to have more access to their culture while abroad.

The lender was also involved in making public advertisements, which acknowledges importance of multiculturalism.

Hana Financial believes that the company can make the world better little by little sponsoring these programs, and it attempts to be at the frontline of the movement.

“Hana Financial seeks to lead CSR activities offering practical solutions for social problems” the company said in a press release. “Hana Financial aims to pursue social responsibility faithfully as a corporate citizen of Korean society.”

A scene from a musical play provided by KEB Hana Bank as part of its social service programs(Photos: HFG)