Shinhan Financial Group focused on professionalism and ushering in a generational shift in its personnel reshuffle by naming senior managers born between 1962-1964 as vice presidents of Shinhan Financial Holdings and Shinhan Bank. The group appointed a person born between 1964-1965 to take up the position of director at Shinhan Financial Holdings, which lowers the average age of the group’s directors.

Chang Dong-ki, headquarters manager, has been promoted to vice president of Shinhan Financial Holdings. He entered Shinhan Bank in 1989 and came up through the rank and file to take charge of the financial matters team at the headquarters.

Kim Byung-cheol, vice president of Shinhan Financial Holdings, was promoted to run wealth management for the group. Its control tower oversees all policies related to wealth management at various affiliates of the group, including insurance firms, banks and financial investment firms. He joined Shinhan Investment from Tongyang Securities in 2012, becoming the first non-banking official to take charge of the wealth management sector. Suh Choon-seok and Lee Chang-ku have been promoted to vice presidents of Shinhan Bank from their positions as acting vice presidents.

Korea’s largest commercial bank, Shinhan Bank was awarded Best Retail Bank in Korea and Best Retail Bank in Asia Pacific for 2017 at The Asian Banker’s International Excellence in Retail Financial Services 2017 Awards ceremony, held in conjunction with the region’s most prestigious retail banking event, the Excellence in Retail Financial Services Convention, at the Conrad Tokyo. 

Shinhan Bank emerged as the Best Retail Bank in Asia Pacific in a rigorous audit-styled evaluation program based on a balanced scorecard of 10 key criteria. 

The other top ranked banks include DBS of Singapore, the previous year’s winner, and Westpac of Australia. Shinhan Bank was also awarded Digital Bank of the Year in Asia Pacific for 2017, Shinhan Bank expanded its retail client base and extended its dominant market share position in key retail asset, including automobile finance In line with its five-year strategic growth plan, the bank expanded its retail banking business to emerging overseas markets such as Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam, and created a global retail banking governance structure. 

It demonstrated its customer centred approach and creative use of data analytics by refining its segmentation program and targeting customer sub-segments, including occupational and life-stage groups such as the police, teachers, social workers, new mothers returning work, parents and children. Through these efforts, Shinhan Bank successfully attracted over 400,000 new customers to the bank in 2016. It also introduced a new wealth management account called, ISA, which garnered over 470,000 customers in total. 

The bank grew its retail deposit by 7.7% in 2016 and retail assets by 8.7%. It revamped its automobile financing product and offered it through its new digital banking platform, Sunny Bank MyCar Loan. The bank consolidated its position as the leading retail bank in Korea.

Shinhan Bank maintained its position as the most profitable retail bank in Korea. Retail banking operating profit grew by over 19 % from the year before. Total retail loans grew 6.3% while cost to income ratio improved by 8.3% as net interest margin improved by an impressive 31.9%. It launched a new mobile-only digital bank and entrenched its position as an innovative organization and a pioneer in digital transformation in Korea.

Shinhan Bank launched, Sunny Bank, a mobile-based digital banking platform in December 2015. This followed regulatory changes by FSC to allow bank customers to verify their identity online. 

The new platform enables users to open accounts through mobile identity authentication, negating the need for face-to-face interaction with a bank teller. Customers can obtain foreign exchange, credit card, loan and remittances products and services through the new platform. 

It recorded 10 million visitor's hit for a year in 2016, and generated 1.1 million foreign exchange transactions, 23,000 people applied for the MyCar auto-loan with over $336 million approved and disbursed. During 2016, the bank also introduced a robo-advisory service, M Folio, and continues to be leading the use of AI and machine learning technology in the country.