All three telecom companies have withdrawn from the financial my data market. My data has been recognized as an innovative industry, but more operators are returning licenses or halting services over issues such as data charging.
According to the financial authorities on the 16th, SK Telecom(017670) recently filed a my data business closure report with the Financial Services Commission. SK Telecom was the first among the three telecom companies to obtain full my data authorization in Jul. 2022. KT(030200) filed for closure in May, and LG Uplus(032640) also exited the business in May last year.
Earlier, on the 2nd of this month, Hecto Data (formerly CODEF), a subsidiary of the Fintech company Hecto Financial, also returned its my data license. Starting with HNR's closure filing in 2024, 11 operators have withdrawn from the my data business to date. SK Group and LG(003550) group also operated my data services through SK Planet and LG CNS(064400), respectively, but both exited the business.
My data is a service that aggregates personal credit information in one place, analyzes financial status and spending patterns, and recommends suitable financial products. Financial consumers do not need to access each financial company's application (app) one by one and can instead view their own information at a glance through my data. The government introduced it in 2022 as a core business of the data economy.
The spate of closures by operators is attributed to a high data charging structure and deteriorating profitability. Banks and other financial companies have secured revenue structures by combining existing customer information with financial products, while nonfinancial companies have failed to find viable revenue models. A representative revenue model is a service that recommends customized financial products to subscribed customers, but nonfinancial companies, blocked by various regulations, were unable to properly roll out services. On top of this, as data moves between partners, costs arise in the form of transmission fees, further worsening profitability.
A person at a company that had operated a my data business said, "The more data we transmitted, the higher the fees, so having more subscribed customers actually increased the expense. Although we spent heavily on system construction and advancement and on marketing expense, we concluded it was right to exit the business."
An executive in charge of my data at a commercial bank said, "Financial companies are not generating revenue either; they are bearing the expense to grow their customer base and secure diverse data."