Ham Young-joo, chairman of Hana Financial Group, said in a New Year's address that as MoneyMove accelerates, shifting funds from bank deposits to capital market products, fundamental change is needed. He also offered a blunt warning that the limits of a bank-centered financial model must be faced and that innovation at a level that changes the game is necessary.
On Jan. 2, the chairman said in a New Year's address, "Outflows of IRP (individual retirement pension) accounts to securities firms have already become routine, and the emergence of new products, including IMA (integrated investment account), is no longer favorable to banks," adding, "Household loans have reached the limit of growth, and in corporate lending and the investment institutional sector, we also need insight to separate the wheat from the chaff."
He assessed this change as a "crisis." The chairman said, "Past performance and massive scale do not guarantee survival tomorrow. We cannot go on like this," and called for innovations such as "securing asset management capabilities that can run against the flow of MoneyMove and converting into an optimal professional organization to promote productive finance."
He did not hide disappointment with the group's nonbank institutional sector. The chairman said, "Despite a favorable market environment, including a booming stock market, disappointment with the group's nonbank institutional sector continues," adding, "We must strengthen execution so that ongoing tasks, such as reinforcing competitiveness in core businesses and expanding in retail, can lead to faster results."
The chairman also mentioned shifts in the technology and finance paradigm, such as the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) and stablecoins. He assessed, "The ripple effects of change brought by AI are very large and fundamental, and they are on a different level from the past Industrial Revolution." He added, "We must take the lead in designing and preemptively building a complete ecosystem that spans coin issuance-distribution-use-recirculation."
Regarding "productive finance," the financial theme of this year, he said, "Rather than the results achieved through operations centered on safe assets such as real estate, there is a growing demand that finance create healthy flows of funds that can directly contribute to the growth of the real economy and innovative industries," adding, "Securing investment capabilities that can discover good investment destinations is a core task that determines the organization's survival."
He then presented financial consumer protection as a key task. The chairman said, "The financial consumer protection system must go beyond regulatory compliance and reinterpret all work from the perspective of consumer protection," adding, "As gaps in income, assets, information, and digital access act as barriers to financial accessibility, distrust in finance is deepening, and it cannot be resolved through one-off social contributions."
Regarding the group headquarters' transfer to Cheongna, which will be completed in the second half of this year, he defined it as "not a simple office move, but the starting point of a grand transformation that innovates how we work and our culture." He urged, "We must create synergy through collaboration among affiliates and enhance digital accessibility and execution."