Chairman Sohn Tae-seung of Woori Financial Group. (Photo: WFG)

Woori Financial Group has been working on its globalization strategy for some time now, knowing that the domestic financial market is too crowded to grow profits, so it should go overseas in search of greener pastures.

The financial group is taking advantage of financial markets abroad by establishing the largest financial network overseas at key locations around the world. It is ranked 20th among global financial institutions, with 376 branches mostly spread out in southeast Asian countries. That puts the bank in a leading position to support the government’s New Southern Strategy.

The group is led by Chairman Sohn Tae-seung, who for three years was the vice president of the Global Operational Dep’t. and the Global Sector at Woori Bank’s global operations. The chairman declared, “We will positively consider acquisition and merger of the financial institutions in southeast Asia while pushing for boosting the global operation.”

What he meant was the group has affiliates, including Woori Bank and Woori Card, with overseas branches or outlets totaling some 442, a huge base from which to build further globalization.

Woori Bank, the group’s major affiliate, has been busy for the past several years. It acquired foreign financial institutions, starting with the acquisition of the Sodari Bank in Indonesia in 2014, followed by the takeover of Woori Finance Cambodia, and setting up a local financial in Myanmar subsidiary in 2015.

The bank continued its M&As by taking over Wells Bank, a savings bank in the Philippines in 2016, setting up its local subsidiary in Vietnam and the regional head office in India. The bank came to have 200 global branches by 2015 – a record for a Korean bank - and ranked it 20th largest in global rankings by the time it opened Woori Bank Finance in Cambodia in June 2018.

Woori Bank won approval from the Vietnamese financial authorities to open six additional branches in the Southeast Asian country, moving it a step closer to its goal of operating more than 20 branches in the country by 2020.

The Bank is collaborating with Vietnam’s mobile banking service provider M-Service to strengthen its presence in the Southeast Asian financial market. Woori Bank has opened over 200 global financial service outlets, with two offices already in Vietnam – Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The bank signed an MoU with M-Service to develop and market a mobile money transfer service. M-Service is a leading wireless payment firm in Vietnam with 1 million subscribers and about 4000 offline channels

Through the partnership, Woori Bank plans to launch a mobile money transfer service that will allow users - targeting Vietnamese employees working in Korea and their family members in Vietnam - to send and receive money through the bank’s own mobile banking service platforms WiBee Bank and WiBee Talk, only using mobile phone numbers, reported Pulse News.

In addition, Woori plans to offer a mobile payment service through M-Service’s mobile wallet Mo-Mo by the year’s end. After receiving temporary approval from the Vietnamese central bank to set up a local subsidiary in Vietnam this month, Woori Bank plans to open the local entity in Hanoi around October this year.

Also on the horizon for Woori Bank is its plan to enter the Vietnamese credit card market by mid-2017 by providing financial services ranging from mortgage-backed housing loan services to integrated banking and insurance services, competing with the Korean lender Shinhan Bank who has already entered the Vietnamese market.

Pulse News also noted the bank’s ambitious goal to increase the number of its overseas offices to 400 by the end of this year and 500 by 2020. Woori Bank has opened its maiden India branch in August 18, 2012 in Chennai with a capital of $35 million.