Korea’s Hana Financial Group targets foreign customers

Hana Financial Group, South Korea’s third-largest financial holding company, is targeting foreign individual customers in the country with a dedicated team amid an overall population decline.

Hana Bank, the group’s flagship unit, has set up a task force consisting of staff from 16 departments such as those for foreign exchange support and new digital businesses, to systemically manage foreign retail customers and launch new services for them, according to industry sources on Monday.

The holding company plans to establish an organization for foreigners in the country, in which the lender’s affiliates including Hana Card Co. and Hana Insurance Co. will participate.

The move comes as more and more foreigners are living in South Korea while the country’s population continues to shrink. The number of foreign residents in Asia’s fourth-largest economy rose 23.2% to 2.5 million in 2023 from 2020, but the total population fell 1% to 51.3 million during the same period, according to the Ministry of Justice.

INCREASING REMITTANCES THROUGH KOREA’S TOP FX PLAYER

Foreigners’ financial transactions are also growing rapidly. The number of foreigners who opened accounts at Hana Bank reached 3.1 million as of end-August. The number rose by about 110,000 from 3 million at the end of 2023.

Their remittances through Hana Bank, South Korea’s largest foreign exchange market player, also quickly increased.

The overseas money transfers by foreigners totaled $2.2 billion through its mobile banking app in the first eight months of the year, nearly tripling the $760 million in all of 2021.

The number of remittances also more than trebled to 2.2 million from 652,000 during the period, on course to top 3 million for the first time in 2024.

“The direct remittance service has become more popular as it allows money transfers through the app to the home countries of many foreign workers here such as Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Mongolia,” said a Hana Bank official.

Its foreign exchange department at the headquarters in Seoul has 15 employees, who among them speak 11 languages and are dedicated to providing services to workers from other countries.

OFFLINE SERVICES

Since 2003 the lender has been opening 16 branches on Sundays in cities where many foreigners live and work as it is difficult for them to visit the bank on weekdays.

Hana Bank also introduced an artificial intelligence-based real-time interpretation service in 38 languages such as English, Thai and Malay at those branches.

The bank is expanding such services to international students and foreign family members. 

It provides foreign students in the country with customized financial education not only for its services such as opening accounts, remittances and smartphone baking, but also for the prevention of financial crimes including phishing.

For multicultural families, the lender plans to expand the Hana Culture Bank, its program of community branches for foreigners with free medical clinics, libraries and other facilities.

Write to Jae-Won Park at wonderful@hankyung.com
 
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.