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Korea's leading commercial lenders are increasing their overseas staffing alongside their assets and revenue sources, according to market data, Thursday.

Further bolstering their collective standing are efforts toward localization and digitization, the key strengths of Korea's financial services providers.

Korea Federation of Banks Chairman Cho Yong-byung said during a March press conference that the digital drive is a strong suit of Korean market players, underpinning their growth strategy to diversify marketing channels. "The competitiveness of the Korean lenders will be determined by localization as measured by the pace of growth in offshore offices."

According to compiled market data, Korea's top five banks — KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori, Hana and NH NongHyup — had a combined 2,465 employees at offshore branches as of last year, up 19 percent from 2020.

Over the same period, the five lenders downsized their domestic staff numbers by 4.6 percent.

The number of offshore entities established by Korean banks came to 202 in over 40 countries.

Of them, 116 were set up by the five lenders. Included are 39 corporate entities, 63 branches and 14 offices.

The five lenders hold a combined 198 trillion won ($147 billion) in offshore assets, accounting for 8.3 percent of their asset total.

They registered 13 trillion won in offshore business combined profit, doubling from three years ago.

The five saw their transnationality index (TNI), whereby multinational corporations are ranked by the degree of offshore expansion, averaging 15 percent, up 1 percentage point from a year prior. Excluding NongHyup, the index rose to 18 percent.

"Contactless financial services are taking off, buoyed by years of online business expansions during the pandemic," an industry official said. "We plan to lower borrowing rates, as enabled by our digitization efforts."