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| Hana Financial Group Chief Information Officer Kwon Kil-joo, first from left, and Hana TI CEO Yoo Si-wan, second from left, pose with the group's in-house venture team at the Dream Plus Center in southern Seoul, Friday. / Courtesy of Hana Financial Group |
By Jhoo Dong-chan
Major financial groups are setting up in-house venture teams in a bid to get the upper hand in a digital transformation race.
They aim to have the venture bodies break their workers' conventional mindset as bankers and bring more innovative changes and ideas to their organizations.
In its latest move, Hana Financial Group has made its two in-house venture teams the group's official venture projects, the group said Monday.
In August, Hana TI, the group's services subsidiary, launched the Connect & Development (C&D) Factory, a venture incubator program to encourage the group's workers to come up with innovative ideas and entrepreneurship. And it has since received applications for venture ideas from workers.
Two in-house teams were selected as finalists for the group's official venture teams. The first team introduced a subminiature image process module and data transmitting platform while the other team suggested a transparent donation platform that utilizes blockchain technology.
"We will continuously support our workers to come up with more innovative ideas while promoting entrepreneurship," said Hana TI CEO Yoo Si-wan during the group's in-house venture event at the Dream Plus Center in Seoul.
"I hope their challenge will contribute to the group's efforts for digital transformation."
Hana isn't the only financial group that promotes in-house ventures.
Woori Bank has recently decided to officially sponsor the e-sports game events of League of Legends based on the recommendation of the lender's in-house venture, InnoThink. It was Woori's first official sponsorship for an e-sports event.
The Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) also formed two in-house ventures to produce more innovative and diversified ideas.
The bank's venture team Creative is making various video contents to attract more customers while the other team IBK Bobae is introducing business models to support the nation's small- and medium-sized enterprises.
Shinhan Bank has also operated in-house venture SPARK since 2016. In a bid to materialize workers' ideas, the bank has expanded its ties with startups while sending workers abroad for experience and training under the venture program.
KB Kookmin Bank said November that it will incubate its own ventures to cope with new market demands for innovation and digital.
"It's inevitable for banks to do something apart from their conventional businesses and invent new revenue platforms to compete with latecomers," said an industry insider.
