President Kim Do-jin of the Industrial Bank of Korea,4 R, is seen with a number of staff during his  visit to the Songdo Technology Park branch in Songdo, Incheon, on March 14.

A view of the SME Sales Outlet in the Seoul Railroad Station in Seoul.(Photos: IBK)

The Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) will go all out to provide special digital financial services to SME customers this year in an effort to segregate the financial market for small- and medium-sized firms and overwhelm rival financial firms. 

IBK will push its specialized digital financial service to SME customers, while commercial banks in general look to provide digital financial service specially aimed at the retail financial market.

IBK officials said digitalized financial services can be provided by IBK and the bank aims to develop more specialized digital financial service for its SME customers this year, while training some 10,000 personnel to take charge of the digitalized financial service to participate in the dynamic digital financial market in 2018 as stressed by President Kim Do-jin in his managerial plans.

The bank has been working to digitalize its operations from early on. The bank has been providing a special service with its Mobile Special Fund Management to small commercial firms. It provides them with necessary information, just like a mobile financial secretary. Its IBK Medical Fund Management Service has been getting very good reactions from the medical, Oriental medical and pharmaceutical industries.

IBK will also work on expanding non face-to-face banking transactions through digitalization of its window services, including the submission of credit papers to be made possible through non face-to-face channels under its plan to cut the number of visits customers have to make to bank branches and physical papers submitted.

The bank plans to reform its SMART banking systems so they will be leading such systems among the banks in the country.

The IBK Hidden Champion Exporters and Technologies Program targets SMEs with global technological competitiveness, providing them with a wide range of services such as exclusive loans and non-financial services. 

“We supported 109 of these relatively small but highly successful companies in 2016,” the bank said in a statement. “We also operate the IBK Creative Enterprise Program. It supports the operations of technology-driven SMEs that have exhibited a high potential for growth, offering them a variety of special loan products and other supports.” 

The program selected 40 new companies in 2016, and has provided assistance to a total of 160 as of the end of the year. The SME Myeongpum Maru, a showroom dedicated to SME products, collaborates with KORAIL to offer a wide variety of high-quality products produced by SMEs. Located inside Seoul, Daejeon, East Daegu, and Gwangju Stations, its stores helped a total of 284 tenant companies to expand their market range and increase the sales in 2016.

“We also provide SMEs with a wide range of advisory services in such areas as real estate transactions, investment analyses, and real estate management. They are provided by means of an MOU arranged with a professional consulting firm. 183 SMEs took advantage of this program in 2016.”