Shinhan Financial Group plans to hold finance and economy classes for people in various sectors of society as part of its social services, the group announced on June 25.

The group said it will provide the financial education free of charge to various classes of people in the country in answer to calls for increased social responsibility of financial companies amid the global financial crisis.

Chairman Han Dong-woo said the financial group has been practicing “compassionate finance” to benefit society and the financial education program, too, is also a way for the financial group to benefit society. “We will continue to implement the social service programs positively in the days ahead as a means to keep society warm,” Han said.

The group intends to build a base for the future growth of the nation’s financial competitive power by providing financial education to people across the country, which will become the group’s representative social contribution service.

The financial group has been working on the plan by launching a task force for the financial education with selected personnel from each affiliate of the group to make the event a group-wide exercise from next March.

As the first step in the move, a meeting took place on June 25 for lecturers at the Shinhan Bank’s head office in Taepyeong-ro, downtown Seoul, to discuss their roles and education contents for the financial classes. The special financial lessons will be provided to around 50,000 people from all strata of society annually, which will go far in enhancing the nation’s financial competitiveness.

The lecturers’ group is made of 86 from the bank and 20 from the card company, and four from other parts of the group for a total of 110. All of them have extensive experience in financial sector businesses, with many of them qualified to be college professors, the group said.

The subjects of the lecture will not only include financial education, but also some special and unique contents taken from the financial affiliates’ financial operations to make the special education offering a great success. The education programs will include the specific financial operations of such operating in the investment, life insurance, credit card, and banking sectors.

There are also programs for children, under the children’s financial experience classes provided by Shinhan Bank, as well as for senior citizens under the Happy Silver Classrooms, also to be provided by Shinhan Bank. Shinhan Card is set to provide financial education programs tailor-made for children at various children’s centers around the country, while Shinhan Financial Investment will set up the ‘Warm Financial Camps’ for youths, with all four programs prepared for different age groups.

Shinhan Bank’s ‘Children’s Financial Experience Classroom’ will offer a story on its operations. The children will be invited to visit a number of its branches on weekends to learn firsthand what is going on at a bank branch in order to help them easily understand the financial economy at work, which is something many thought would be difficult to teach to children.

The bank conducted the event twice already to take care of some of the shortcomings of the program, which will lead to opening a number of its branches in Seoul and its vicinities and those in the countryside. The children will see the money deposited and withdrawn; installation savings; foreign exchange transactions and other business; the use of credit cards in buying something on credit; the sale of stocks and insurance; and other diverse deals going on at those branches.

Shinhan Life Insurance will call on about 220 old people’s homes around the country to give them lessons on how the financial economics works under the ‘Happy Silver Financial Education.’ The program is designed to teach them about asset management, the prevention of “voice phishing” to help them conduct their financial affairs safely, and how to deal with tax problems to help them plan their old-age life well.

The 13 lecturers will include retired officials of Shinhan Bank including former branch managers, tax officials, asset managers, and financial planners °™ most of them top lecturers in the country who can provide high-quality lessons on financial education.

Those who want to participate in the program can apply through the five senior people’s welfare facilities around the country and can get a four-week long program at each of the facilities.