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KT, Naver, NHN target banks for cloud business

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By Jun Ji-hye

KT, Naver, NHN and other Korean IT companies are targeting banks and other financial services companies for their cloud computing business as they lag behind Amazon Web Services and other larger foreign rivals in manufacturing and other industries, company officials said Tuesday.

The moves by the Korean companies come based on the notion that they can take advantageous positions ahead of foreign rivals in the financial sector as well as in the public sector, to which relatively tougher security-related regulations are applied.

Cloud computing service providers are targeting the financial sector this year as the government relieved several regulations in January, allowing financial institutions to deal with personal data and electronic financial transaction information through cloud services offered by private companies.

KT, Naver and NHN have moved fast to provide banks with their cloud services, passing security assessments carried out by the Financial Security Institute. KT passed the assessment in April, while Naver Business Platform (NBP) and NHN did so this month.

It is essential to pass the assessments to apply cloud services to financial systems.

Among the assessment items is having a data center in Korea, which is regarded as an unfavorable condition for foreign companies.

"After passing the assessment by the Financial Security Institute, KT offered our cloud services to KEB Hana Bank's global payment network systems," a KT official said.

NBP said it has also passed all the assessment items, proving its capability of operating safe cloud services for financial firms.

The company said it underwent the assessments as it plans to offer its cloud platform to financial institutions here that are pushing to create new services utilizing the cloud.

"We have prepared everything to offer safe services to our corporate clients in the financial sector," NBP CEO Park Won-ki said. "We will continue to make active investments to offer tailored cloud services for the financial sector and have global competitiveness."

Earlier this year, NBP signed a business agreement with KOSCOM to jointly establish specialized cloud computing services for financial institutions. KOSCOM is an IT system provider owned by the Korea Exchange.

NBP is planning to open a financial cloud zone next month on Yeouido, Seoul.

NHN is also seeking to offer its clouding computing services to financial companies with its TOAST Cloud.

The move is in line with the firm's efforts to transform itself into a more comprehensive IT firm from a game company.

"With our TOAST Cloud, we will target corporate clients in the financial and commerce sectors in 2019," Kim Dong-hoon, a director of the cloud business department at NHN, said during a media conference held in January.


Jun Ji-hye jjh@koreatimes.co.kr


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