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The financial sector in Korea is lacking major players comparable to Hyundai and Samsung in the automotive and electronics industries. Korea's financial institutions are mostly focused on domestic and Asian markets and not enough on international ones.
The argument is that Korean financial companies can open up to
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international skies and become global players by developing a corporate culture open to the world, growing their domestic assets and expanding internationally.
South Korea is short of nonnative manpower to assist its financial companies' transition into global markets.
To successfully compete with established global financial firms, Korean financial companies need to hire more aliens who are essential in coming up with rival product offerings and bringing a more diverse vision that other countries' financial companies already have.
In other sectors, Korean global players like Samsung have benefited from outsourced R&D centers all over the world; even though the foreign talents are not necessarily located in Korea, the companies still rely on them, and these talents can accommodate international disparities and local cultures into products that will be sold worldwide.
For instance, carmaker Hyundai opened a design center in California in 1990 to develop cars that are better suited to the American market like the Santa Fe and Sonata models.
This illustrates how multicultural teams can accommodate the needs of worldwide consumers better by creating products tailored to specific markets.
Furthermore, corporate culture of multinational companies
headquartered in Korea are under an ever-growing international influence that is not yet felt in financial institutions.
For example, the proportion of Samsung's global workforce related to its total workforce has increased from 41 percent in 2007 to 54 percent in 2011, thus encouraging diversity and innovation.
Therefore, financial companies should get inspired by global Korean companies by championing international hires and some changes in their corporate culture.
Investing more internationally is the second vector of improvement that Korean financial institutions can focus on.
Global financial companies in other countries have partly expanded their international influence through global acquisitions and mergers, such as Citigroup's 2002 acquisition of Mexico's second largest bank Banamex.
On the contrary, Korean banks and insurance companies have yet to realize global acquisitions in key markets that would help them develop their business outside Korea.
In fact, they have only recently started acquiring foreign companies, such as the announced merger of Bank Woori Indonesia and Indonesia's Bank Saudara.
This expansion needs to be sustained and not focused solely on emerging countries in order to support the growing worldwide impact of Korean banks.
Besides, although most major Korean banks have branches in capitals such as Paris and Tokyo, these operations are primarily used by overseas Korean nationals and not by locals.
In brief, global acquisitions and mergers would allow Korean firms to rapidly develop their presence in other countries, although these acquisitions may only be possible if some domestic mergers are realized.
