Jang Min-young, the new president of Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK), officially took office on the 20th. It is the inauguration ceremony about a month after the appointment on Jan. 23. Until now, an official inauguration could not be held due to the union's commute-blocking protest.
In her inaugural address that day, President Jang said, "In the midst of a compound crisis of low growth and an industrial great transformation, the burden on small and midsize corporations is growing," and added, "IBK must leap beyond being a mere provider of funds to become a financial partner that leads improvements in industrial fundamentals."
To that end, President Jang said she will use the government's "productive finance" as a driving force and fully launch the "IBK-style productive finance project," injecting 300 trillion won by 2030 to dramatically expand financial support for future new industries such as AI, semiconductors, and energy, as well as innovative corporations.
She also said IBK will strengthen customized finance for each stage of a corporation's life cycle and innovate its credit screening system to reflect technological prowess and growth potential, while expanding capital market functions through the "IBK Public Growth Fund task force," which brings together group capabilities.
In addition, she conveyed an intention to work toward achieving "regional balanced development" and "inclusive and fair finance." Along with support for regional industrial ecosystems tailored to the "five hubs and three special zones system," she added that IBK will help practical recovery through comprehensive support linking low-interest refinancing loans, debt adjustment, and management consulting under a 75 trillion won small business support policy.
Along with this, President Jang said, "I will transform Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) into an AI-based financial corporations," and added, "We will combine vast corporate finance data with AI to advance our analysis, screening, and soundness management systems and provide hyper-personalized digital financial services."
Lastly, President Jang said, "The most basic competitiveness of a financial institution is customers' trust," and added, "We will strengthen financial consumer protection, internal controls, and information security systems to preemptively manage even invisible risks."