Chairman Cho Yong-byoung of Shinhan Financial Group.

Shinhan Financial Group said on March 24 it launched the Shinhan Reform Finance Promotion Committee to give financial support to SMEs, venture firms and reform-minded firms. The move is in step with the government’s Productive Financial Vision.

President Moon Jae-in announced the vision at a ceremony for the announcement of the Productive ‘Financial Vision held at the head office of the Industrial Bank of Korea in Euljiro, Seoul, on March 21.

Under the vision, the group will have its affiliates expand credit loans in a move to boost its financial support to reform-minded companies, under the personal leadership by Chairman Cho as the head of the committee.

The group will set aside 2.1 trillion won as an investment fund in reform-minded firms through the GIB Dep’t in the next five years
The committee will be made of the CEOs of the group’s 14 affiliates and key officials of 110 headquarter dep’ts, totaling some 2,000, and work for three major targets including reform of the corporate loan provision system, boosting loans to reform-minded firms and building the platforms for reformed growth.

The committee will remake the group’s lending system, which has been conservative by introducing more loan products, designed to give more benefits to the corporate borrowers by expanding the mortgage loans to include movable assets and the credit analyses to include future prospects of the borrowers.

Shinhan Financial Group launched Shinhan AI, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based investment consulting company, the group said Feb.18.
The financial group set up an AI-specialized company as a subsidiary which the group registered at a court in Seoul with Park Woo-hyuk named as its CEO. The new CEO is a former vice president in charge of the Strategic Planning for the group to work out of his office in the Shinhan Financial Investment Tower in Yeouido, Seoul.

Shinhan AI completed registration as a corporate body in January, and the group is "currently in the process of registering the company as an investment consulting business", according to a group official.

The move is in line with group chairman Cho Yong-byoung's strategy to reinvent the group as a digital leader by utilizing AI as an innovation tool to enhance bank, securities and insurance businesses, along with new technologies ushered in under the 4th Industrial Revolution.
The new entity is set to begin services in June, after the registration process is completed, the official said. Last year, Shinhan became the first in the domestic finance sector to incorporate Watson.

Watson is an AI super computer that analyzes vast amounts of data to help make the most appropriate decision or propose a customized product. Australia and New Zealand Bank and the Development Bank of Singapore which incorporated Watson years earlier, have been utilizing the system to process data for customer services.

Shinhan Financial Group Co., Ltd. provides financial products and services in South Korea and internationally.

The company operates through five segments: Banking, Credit Cards, Securities, Life Insurance, and Others.

It offers retail banking services, including mortgage and home equity, and retail lending; demand, savings, and fixed deposit-taking; checking accounts; electronic banking and automatic teller machines (ATM); and bill paying, payroll and check-cashing, currency exchange, and wire fund transfer services.

The company also provides corporate banking services, such as investment banking, real estate financing, overseas real estate and development project financing, infrastructure and structured financing, equity/venture investments, mergers and acquisitions consulting, and securitization; derivatives services comprising securities and derivative products, and foreign exchange trading; and working capital loans and facilities loans.

A view of the Shinhan Financial Group building located near South Gate in Seoul. (Photos: SFG)