The Group is evolving to become a major digital financial services provider:
Hana Financial Group makes major Seoul, South Korea based financial services behemoth Hana Financial Group has been expanding its digital footprint since 2021. For example, one of its strategic units, Hana Bank, has implemented adopted ‘My Branch’, which is a virtual banking service, offering both the convenience of digital banking and the customer-specific attention of the branch service, in the realms of customer care, product description, consulting etc. It is essentially a new branch digital transformation (DT) platform that facilitates offline-to-online business. It has 2 basic functions – a corporate one configured to meet the financial needs of corporate employees, and an apartment one catering to apartment residents.
The service attracted some 55,000 customers in its initial phase (worth around KRW 3.7 billion) There are more than 9000 ‘My Branches’ in operation now. The bank says from an employee’s perspective it functions as an optimal tool for attracting new customer segments, each comprising businesses, apartment residents and community members. And from the customer point of view, it provides the convenience of availing products or services without having to download an app or log in.
DIGITIZATION OF LOANS
The bank had also taken up on a priority basis digitization of household loans by introducing online-only products, ‘Hana 1Q Apartment Loan’ and ‘Hana 1Q Jeonse Loan’ (a housing loan). The bank has seen a steady increase in online credit loans under its ‘Hana 1Q Credit Loan’. It has recently adopted an online process for extending unsecured loans and collateralized and Jeonse loans.
One novel digital product of the bank is ‘iBOOJA’, which is a financial app for parents and children to communicate and experience finance together. Using the app, children can gain diverse first-hand financial experiences conducting various transactions with digital allowances from their parents, develop good financial habits and grow into able members of society. The app account can be opened by children 13 and younger after a simple verification requiring a parental consent.
USING MYDATA KOREA
‘Hana 1Q’ is a smart finance app, which allows users to conduct not only banking but also stock, card, insurance and other financial transactions. It helps customers find products and services that fulfill their needs with ease. It also has an asset management service online using MyData Korea platform, which facilitates online shopping, health care, rental car, travel services as well as real estate investment. MyData Korea is basically a hub for creating an ecosystem in the country and is mainly used for internet banking offering extreme convenience. The Group is participating in the MyData service through 4 affiliates of the Group – Hana Bank, Hana Financial Investment, KEB Hana Card and Finqq.
The Group’s first MyData brand is Hana HAP, a personal asset management service. The service is customized consulting on asset management and foreign exchange investment and it is offered only to a small number of high-net-worth people digitally. Hana HAP means ‘one sum’ in Korean. It has customer-specific optimal financial service solutions offered by consolidating customers’ extensive financial data scattered across the digital network of the Group affiliates.
SMART TELLER SYSTEM
Another digital facility that is widely adopted by the Group entities is Smart Lounge. For example, using this, Hana Bank has created a smart teller system where customers can fill out necessary forms while waiting for the bank teller service. It also has Smart Lounge text-to-speech (TTS) system for the digitally challenged and it uses Smart Lounge to preempt incomplete sales and digitized internal controls.
The group’s digital transformation initiative includes total transition to cloud computing. Started way back in 2018, the initiative focused on 5 key execution tasks – establishing cloud governance, building a Next Cloudia, expanding hybrid cloud operations, advancing the hybrid cloud infrastructure, and implementing cloud governance. Since then, it has achieved significant progress.
The Group had announced in 2021 that it completed a large-scale migration of mission-critical applications to the public cloud with Oracle. The migration included that of ‘Hana Members’, a digital lifestyle platform with more than 15 million members.
3 APPROACHES
Hana Bank’s digital strategy consists of 3 approaches – innovating consumer experience, expanding value chains and leading new digital businesses. By prioritising a digital-first set of core values, the bank aims to stay competitive and maintain a strong position in the market.
At the Group level, there is a collaboration with SK Telecom, which has a focus on AI-based products and services. The 2 entities have set up an AI Lab for Startup, which organized an AI Startup Accelerator program. Some 15 startups, had set up their officers at the AI Startup Lab.
The Group has recently created an AI data analysis platform ‘1Q on Sample’, a unique AI integration platform optimized for data analysis for the group’s analysis financial services. The group’s own IT affiliate, Hana Financial TI, led the development of the platform.
This article has been compiled based on publicly available information on the web, particularly the bank’s own website.
Read more:
Actuarials to drive Prediction & Personalization
Financing demand for luxury 2-wheeler EVs
Moving towards digital compliance
