Pres. Lee Dae-hoon of NH Bank.

Pres. Choi Chang-soo of NH Non-Life Insurance Co.

CEO Hong Jae-eun of NH LIfe Insurance Co.

Pres. Lee Ku-chan of NH Capital Co. (Photos: NHFG)

NongHyup Bank CEO Lee Dae-hoon became the first chief executive of the lender to serve three consecutive terms. Up to now, the heads of NongHyup Fainancial Group’s affiliates had only served a maximum of two terms.

At the groups recommendation committee meeting held Dec. 2, Lee was forwarded as the only candidate for the position.

“Procedures remain, but he will likely retain the CEO post,” a NongHyup Bank official said. Lee, who was appointed CEO in December 2017, will serve through 2020.

Analyst say Lee was seen as a shoe-in because of the bank's record earnings under his leadership. The lender’s net profit in 2017 stood at 652.1 billion won, but in 2018 jumped to 1.22 trillion won.

This was the first time the bank posted over 1 trillion won. In the first three quarters of this year, NongHyup saw its net profit rise to 1.19 trillion won.

Lee is also seen to have laid the groundwork for the lender's digital transformation, as well as overseas expansion. NongHyup Life Insurance CEO Hong Jae-eun and NH Capital CEO Lee Koo-chan have also each been recommended for a second term.

NongHyup Bank has 1,780 foreign exchange banks and 54 foreign exchange banks around the world and we are building a foundation as a global by expanding our import and export financing for the overseas companies through the strategic business alliances (MOUs) with major global banks and we will strengthen our competitiveness through sustained growth in the foreign exchange business.

As a result of promotion of profit-oriented foreign exchange business and strengthening site-oriented marketing in 2017, the total foreign exchange business volume reached $68.1 billion. In particular, the currency exchange and remittance transactions increased 115.4% compared with the previous year.

“We have expanded our customer base by promoting summer and winter foreign currency exchange and remittance festival and executing timely foreign currency exchange marketing at each season,” said NongHyup.

“We have strengthened our overseas remittance competitiveness by launching our new products such as ‘Non-facing Western Union automatic remittance service’ and ‘NH-AGRI non-account remittance service.’ ”

“We also improved our foreign exchange infrastructure including the establishment of foreign exchange help-desks, improvement of foreign exchange service by channel and construction of new foreign exchange BPR system.”

In particular, we provided customer convenience by expanding our overseas remittance offices for the remittance by agricultural and livestock cooperative customers and constructing the image transmission system.

NongHyup Bank is a pure ethnic capital bank established with 100% domestic capital and a specialized bank that manages the central and regional government’s deposit safe with the biggest nationwide branch network and is the first bank for 6 consecutive years.

It says it is doing its best to become a bank which is loved by citizens through customer-oriented management by enhancing the value of customers’ assets through optimal asset portfolio management as a holding company of NongHyup Financial Group together with our insurance and securities company.

“In particular, we are taking the lead in realizing ‘the age of 50 million won of farm household income’ by returning the profit generated from NongHyup Bank to the agricultural and rural support projects and sharing the basic value of farmer’s heart with the people.”