Chairman Cho Yong-byeong of Shinhan Financial Group. (Photos: SFG)

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 a pacemaker for the ecological growth of the startup biz firms thru the new platform so that the group will always support the reform biz firms’ challenges to the extent that they will not back down from those challenges.

The InnoTalk platform provides all kinds of information and services one-stop 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 when you meet those who are about to set up new biz firms and startup people, you felt they simply needed basic information for starting new businesses such as the procedures to set up new business firms, and signing contracts. He was very sure that they needed a platform that gives them such information from A to Z on starting a biz firm.

The group said they made up the name of the new platform by combining the words innovation and talk so that it will keep open the communication among all parties on businesses among the startups, among biz firm and financial institutions, among the investors and among biz firms and the job seekers 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. The group saw a 5.6 percent increase in interest income of 3.9 trillion won in the first half of this year, thanks to a rise in loTns and strong non-banking business.

Overseas interest income, in particular, jumped 27.8 percent over the cited period, accounting for 9.9 percent of total interest income, up from 8.2 percent last year.

Shinhan Financial Group’s non-interest income also gained 26.7 percent on-year to 1.7 trillion won in the January-June period. Non-interest income growth came after gains from Orange Life Insurance and Asia Trust that Shinhan Financial Group acquired.

Shinhan Financial Group’s net profit from its global business also jumped 8.7 percent year over year to 178.3 billion won in the first half of the year, accounting for 9.6 percent of total income, up 0.5 percentage points from last year. Overall management indices, meanwhile, dropped slightly.

Shinhan Financial Group’s return on equity (ROE) fell 0.02 percentage points to 0.82 percent year over year and its return on assets (ROA) down 0.21 percentage points to 10.88 percent.

Shinhan Financial Group’s non-performing loan ratio rose 0.05 percentage points on year to 0.59 percent as of June while Bank for International Settlement (BIS) ratio down from 14.9 percent to 14.3 percent over the same period due to its acquisition of Orange Life Insurance.

A view of the building near South Gate in Seoul where the Shinhan Financial Group has offices.