Yoon Jong-won, president of the Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK), will spare no efforts in supporting small companies and small business owners so they will be able to the overcome COVID-19 crisis in 2022.
“Overcoming the COVID-19 crisis will be our top priority for this year,” President Yoon said in his New Year’s address on Jan. 3.
“Inclusive finance will also be strengthened to ease the burden of financial costs for small business owners and small companies during a period of an interest rate hike.”
“To support small and medium-sized companies’ innovation, we will provide management diagnoses and customized solutions through the Financial Doctor Program,” Yoon added, “We will also supply 1.5 trillion won in venture capital and create an accelerating organization and financially help companies in their early stages by this year.”
“We will consider the governance structure of IBK Financial Group to increase synergies and boost the effectiveness of support for small and medium-sized companies by revitalizing cooperative projects among group affiliates,” Yoon added.
In addition to overcoming the COVID-19 crisis, President Yoon chose the establishment of digital, global and synergy
strategies, back-to-the-basics management, and ‘great’ workplaces as key management strategies for 2022.
“We will provide easy, fast, and convenient services for customers at all points of contact with customers and build a corporate digital platform beyond banking,” Yoon continued.
“We will sharpen the competitiveness of our personal finance to keep abreast with the era of hyper-personalization with the i-ONE Asset Management Service.” The IBK will also keep upgrading its global strategies.
“I visited Poland and other European regions in November last year,” Yoon said.
“I will find additional measures to respond to overseas financial demand while establishing a base in Eastern Europe. Based on our accumulated corporate financial capabilities for small and medium-sized companies, we will lead K-Finance through our support for an SME bank in Saudi Arabia and international organizations.”
The IBK will continue to take the lead in changing the structures of small and medium-sized companies.
“Looking at a case of Coupang, a unicorn company listed on the New York Exchange last year, more than 9 trillion won in investment was attracted based on Coupang’s future value, and the credit loan limit calculated by the IBK stood at only 20 million won,” President Yoon explained.
“We cannot see the future with the eyes of the past,” he said. “We need to reorganize the screening system in a future-oriented manner so that we can properly evaluate technology and growth potential after veering away from old screening practices centered on collateral and financial indicators.”
In order to fulfill our duties as a state-run bank while responding to future changes, the IBK should pay much attention to what and how to prepare them, Yoon said.
“We need to support the sustainable innovation of small and medium-sized companies and boost the IBK’s competitiveness on our own.”
In the meantime, the IBK announced on Jan. 13 that it opened its fifth startup development platform, “IBK Changong Daejeon.”
“IBK Changgong is a start-up development platform that supports non-financial services such as investment, loan services, mentoring, consulting, IR, and market development so that start-up companies will be able to build successful business models,” an IBK official said.
Before the opening ceremony, the IBK selected 25 innovative startups to be supported by IBK Changgong Daejeon.
The selection companies consisted of health and diagnosis companies (36 percent) in the medical devices and biotech sectors, in knowledge service companies (16 percent) such as new business platforms and blockchain-based authentication services.
“We decided to open IBK Changong Daejeon in Daejeon to actively support innovation-powered technological companies in the Daedeok R&D Special Zone of Daejeon with research institutes, colleges and universities, companies and outstanding people of talent,” Yoon said.
The IBK plans to provide more than 1 trillion won, 200 billion won per year, in financial support for startups in the Daedeok R&D Special Zone over the next five years.
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