President Yoon Jong-won of the Industrial Bank of Korea presides over a meeting of branch office chiefs’ meeting at the IBK Finance Tower in Seoul on Feb. 5. (Photo: IBK)

By 2023, the Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) will train 1,000 specialized employees to will support the bank’s digital transformation, said Yoon Jong-won, president of Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK).

The remarks were made at a press conference to mark Yoon’s one-year anniversary as president. Due to concerns over COVID-19 infections, the IBK president answered questions in writing from reporters.

“We will push for the internalization of conventional digital capabilities by supporting all employees in securing basic digital capabilities,” Yoon said.

In detail, the bank will create IBK digital education courses by partnering with major universities such as Yonsei University, and send specially-trained personnel to the universities, starting from this March.

“We plan to recommend experts who will be able to contribute to the development of the IBK to the Financial Services Commission,” Yoon said, regarding the controversial recommendation of directors by the labor union.

“To this end, we are listening to opinions through various channels, including those of the labor union.” Outside directors of the IBK are appointed by the Financial Services Commission if the bank president recommends candidates according to relevant law.

“We can go for such systems when related laws are revised,” Yoon said, regarding the institutionalization of a worker-recommended director system which fixedly appoints workers as outside directors, and a laborer-turned-director system which appoints workers as outside directors.

In 2021, Yoon will focus on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG). ESG refers to the three central factors in measuring the sustainability and societal impact of an investment in a company or business. “We will establish an ESG management team and approach it systematically based on this,” Yoon said.

“We will evaluate and reflect ESG when deciding on loans or investments and expand the proportion of investments in ESG-related assets. We will strengthen internal and external inspection systems and boost transparency in our management and business activities by setting up an ESG committee.”

Recently, commercial banks have been reducing the number of employees in the digital financial era through massive voluntary retirement programs.

However, state-run banks, including the IBK, have no applicants as employees are not satisfied with conditions for voluntary retirements.

“The number of employees under the Wage Peak System will exceed 1,000 at the end of this year,” Yoon said. “We continue to explain the need for voluntary retirements to the government, saying that we can cut costs and increase new employment compared to maintaining jobs for employees under the Wage Peak System by implementing voluntary retirements.”

The IBK announced on Jan. 15 that it will establish IBK New Deal Fund to discover and foster innovative companies that befit the government’s Korean New Deal policies, and invest a total of 1 trillion won for five years and 200 billion won each year in the Korean New Deal with the fund during the five-year period.

Through this fund, the IBK plans to focus on companies that carry out five core Korean New Deal tasks selected by the bank —strengthening the data, network, and artificial intelligence (DNA) ecosystem, fostering non-face-to-face industries, digitizing social overhead capital (SOC), diffusing low carbon and decentralized energy and building a green industrial innovation ecosystem.

IBK New Deal Fund will be managed as a master fund. The IBK will put IBK New Deal Fund under the management of Korea Growth Investment Corp.

It is also planning to expand its investment by creating a feeder fund along with private equity funds (PEFs) and investment associations.

Meanwhile, the IBK is planning to nurture innovative companies by supplying 1.5 trillion won in venture capital including the newly created IBK New Deal Fund as part of IBK Innovation Management by 2022.

The IBK will continue to support customers’ innovation by establishing a support system for each stage of corporate growth and a top-priority digital environment for customers for the win-win growth of customers and the lender.

“We will sincerely serve as a catalyst for the success of the Korean New Deal by support the discovery and growth of innovation-powered Korean New Deal companies,” an IBK official said.