President Lee Dae-hoon visits a branch to encourage the staff and listen to any problems they might have. (Photo: NH Bank)

President Lee Dae-hoon of NH Bank said he is sure the bank has a sound lead in digital banking facilities over other banks, and that fact is recognized in the banking sector.

He said the bank is about a year or two ahead of rivals as far as the digitalization of its banking facilities is concerned on the strength of the establishment of a fintech support team in 2015 to develop fintech jointly with fintech firms. That alone sets NH Bank apart from other banks, he said.

The bank started to invest in digitalization back in 2015 by setting up a fintech organization inside the bank for the first time in banking circles, and took steps to expand later that year by opening the NH Fintech Reform Center at a location close to the bank’s head office in the Seodaemun District, Seoul.

The idea behind setting up the center was to attract the attention of fintech related companies and organizations around the country and help the promising ones to get assistance from the bank in various areas, including consultations on attracting investments, securing office spaces, and other cooperative support.

As a result, the center has consolidated its position as the vehicle for the bank to secure various and diverse exchanges with fintech firms.

The digitalization continued to speed up with the base for the development of Big Data, the central part of the digitalization takin a firm shape. The bank promoted the Big Data task force, which was set up in October, 2016, to the Big Data Strategic Team in July, last year, to take exclusive charge of the Big Data operation sector which was led by a person recruited from outside the bank.

The team’s first major task was named as the “NH Big Square” containing the information on 22 million individual customers and 370 corporate customers including their transaction records for the past three years such as credit card and call center consultations, among others.

They were able to collect information on their buying habits and the goods preferred from the analyses of the information, which have been used as the marketing targets by the bank’s branches and other outlets around the country. Some sources credit the bank’s credit card sector as one of the key factors that helped the speedy growth of the digital strength of the bank.

Others note the detailed information on credit card transactions and the ages of the users and their disposable incomes as the key factors that helped the competitive strength of the bank to grow further.

NH Bank has been keen on the training of the personnel who can connect the data with business, calling them as data scientists, so it can have them as many as possible. The bank concluded a cooperative tie-up with the Seoul National University Big Data Research Institute and opened the course on the Big Data analysis form the second half of last year. The bank also had its Digital Strategy Dep’t to hold the “Fintech Small Talk” for 30 minutes before the office closes so everyone knows what is happening with the bank’s fintech operation.

President Lee came with something to eat for everyone at the gathering on Aug. 3 to the surprise of the attendants to show that the bank intends to continue to push for digitalization and other fintech such as AI robots so that they can replace human beings in some financial service areas.

President Lee said securing competitive edge for a bank thru digitalization and the discovery of new financial services have been critical for banks with their importance growing day-by-day and the bank will continue to make efforts to see that its competitive edge over those of its rivals grow bigger all the time.