Yang Jong-hee, chairman of KB Financial Group, said on the 2nd that the big wave called AI (artificial intelligence) will change the game in financial markets, and that the financial industry is entering a paradigm-shift period for the country and society.
Yang held a digital kickoff ceremony that day and said in a New Year's message, "We must first secure customers and business opportunities in the newly forming digital asset and AI business markets."
Yang presented "transition and expansion" as the strategic direction for KB Financial this year, saying, "Transition is a farewell to what is familiar, and expansion is an encounter with what is unfamiliar." He added, "Starting this year, based on the new branch operation model, staff in the field will be able to focus on work that creates higher value."
He also said, "We must broaden the group's market dominance over strategic customer segments such as youth, seniors, small and midsize corporations, and high-asset clients," adding, "Only with extraordinary resolve and effort this year can we lay the groundwork for the group to level up in the future."
Yang said KB Financial strengthened its fundamentals last year by carrying out tasks of efficient management and innovative growth. However, he assessed that in terms of competition and challenges in core businesses such as wealth management (WM) and small and midsize corporations, the group did not achieve satisfactory results.
He said, "To use changes in the financial paradigm, including productive finance, as a strategic growth opportunity, we must first establish professional business feasibility assessment capabilities and a sophisticated risk management framework." He continued, "To protect our profit base shaken by MoneyMove, we need to provide comprehensive asset-liability solutions through advisory- and consultation-centered sales," adding, "We must shift our structure to capital-efficient IB (investment banking) business."