"Changes shouldn’t be taken as dangers, but taken as opportunities for challenges to win new customers and create new markets,” Chairman Cho Yong-byeong said in his inaugural speech last March.
Shinhan Financial Group has had some good results this year despite the fact that it had to grapple with challenges from rapid changes in the financial environment, including the arrival of the 4th Industrial Revolution. The group will have an excellent year in terms of profits, digital finance, global advancement and other areas of its operation.
The stabilization of the group with Chairman Cho at the helm since March and a early achievements in global operations puts Shinhan Bank, its banking affiliate, in a position to be a leader in the country once again. The group’s consolidated financial results for the first three quarters of this year came to 2.7 trillion won, up 25.1 percent YoY, the largest in the history of the group. Third quarter results also were also up 15.5 percent YoY to 817.3 billion won.
But the group had to yield the leading bank position to KB Financial Group, with Kookmin Bank logging 1.84 trillion won in net profit through the first three quarters against Shinhan Bank’s 1.69 trillion won.
But Shinhan Financial Group’s non-banking sector did well, with net profit through the first three quarters coming to 1.13 trillion won, taking up 42.1 percent of total net profit for the group, which is the best non-banking sector net profit among the major financial groups.
Extensive advances by in international operations also helped the group, especially its Vietnam business. The local wholly-owned subsidiary of Shinhan Bank took over the retail finance section from ANZ Bank in April to rank the first among foreign banks operating in the Southeast Asian country. In March, the bank obtained a license to operate in Myanmar, a first for a Korean bank, and started local operations in that country in September.
As a result, the bank’s overseas profit came to $159.22 million through September, up 33.4 percent YoY, already overtaking profit last year’s profits through three quarters this year.
The group is slated to go all out to push the 2020 Project in 2018 with the encouraging operational result for this year as a spring board with the project designed to place the group as a leading financial group in Asia by 2020.
Chairman Cho is slated to push hard for international operational expansion in 2018. He wants the group to expand its global operations so they account for around 20 percent of the group’s overall profit by 2020.
One of the ways to achieve that goal is to complete the Super Platform in the digital sector. It’s scheduled to be completed in February. The plan is to combine Shinhan S Bank, a mobile app, with the Sunny Bank to form a “super platform” linking all financial products operated by the affiliates on a single platform under One Shinhan Strategy.
Under the strategy, the CIB operation jointly shared by affiliates will be expanded to the GIB sector in a bid to strengthen the group’s operation.
The group conducted a sweeping personnel reshuffle in June aimed at boosting the GIB sector’s share in the group’s overall profit to around 14 percent by 2020.
The group will strengthen its financial support to low-income families and SMEs by boosting funds to around 270 billion won in 2018 under the Hopeful Society Project, with the “Warm Financing Stays Along the Future” management theme.
