Chairman Cho Yong-byeong of Shihan Financial Group. (Photo: SFG)

Shinhan Financial Group became the nation's first financial group to be included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) World for the seventh straight year.

The country’s largest financial group ranks sixth in the banking industry sector.

Among the world's 2,500 largest companies in terms of market capitalization, only the top 10 percent of them satisfying economic, environmental and social criteria can be included in the DJSI World.

This year, 25 financial groups were among the DJSI World's banking industry sector.

They include global financial firms such as the Spain-based Santander, the Australia-based Westpac and the France-based BNP Paribas. “Our inclusion in the DJSI World for the seventh straight year shows that we were recognized for our efforts to benefit society with our financial business,” a Shinhan Financial Group official said.

Shinhan Financial Group announced the launch of its InnoTalk platform designed to support reform business firms with information needed for setting up startups and their continued growth.

The group said the new platform would help create some 100,000 jobs in the next three years by contributing to setting up around 10 unicorns with market values projected around 1 trillion won in the next five years. 

Chairman Cho Yong-byeong said the group will play the role of pacemaker for the ecological growth of the startup firms thru the new platform so the group always supports the firms’ challenges.

The InnoTalk platform provides all kinds of one-stop information and services to the biz firms under the slogan that says “You can see all those that are needed for setting up startups,” when they come for help.

Lee Sung-yong, the head of the Shinhan Future Strategy Research Institute, who led the creation of the new financial platform, said entrepreneurs simply needed basic information to start new businesses such as procedures to set them up and signing contracts.

He was very sure that they needed a platform giving them such information from A to Z on starting businesses.

The group said they made up the name of the new platform by combining the words “innovation” and “talk” so it will maintain communication among all parties as an open platform for participation by all parties.

South Korea’s Shinhan Financial Group Co. saw its second-quarter net profit gain 8.5 percent from the previous quarter on the back of high interest and non-interest income, retaining its position as the country’s best-performing financial firm.

Shinhan Financial Group said in a regulatory filing on Sept. 27 that it raised 996.1 billion won in net profit in the April-June period, up 8.46 percent from the previous three-month period and 6.19 percent from the same period a year ago.

Shinhan Financial Group managed to remain as top financial group as its bottom line was higher than that of KB Financial Group for both the second quarter and January-June period.

In the first six months of this year, Shinhan Financial Group raised 1.9 trillion won in net profit, up 6.6 percent from the same period last year, higher than KB Financial Group’s 1.84 trillion won. KB Financial Group’s net profit in the April-June period reached 991.1 billion won.

Shinhan Financial Group’s solid earnings came on both high interest and non-interest income.