Hana Financial eyes M&As in bid to become global finance giant

Group seeks deals in Southeast Asia, more investment banking in US, Europe

Hana Financial Group Chair Ham Young-joo (Hana Financial Group)

Hana Financial Group plans to step up its globalization efforts to become a globally leading finance firm with customized strategies suited to each market with its business spanning from banking to securities brokerage services.

As of the end of 2022, Hana Financial Group had expanded across 25 countries, with more than 4,500 employees overseas.

According to the group, its global profit has been increasing every year by an average of 15 percent over the past four years. In 2022, the group’s global revenue stood at 712.7 billion won ($532.2 million), up 25.6 billion won from the year before, taking up roughly 20 percent of the total revenue.

With 2023 being a time of rate hikes, stubborn inflation and the possibility of a global recession, Hana’s global business will focus on risk management through portfolio rebalancing, the group said.

For banking, the group plans to tighten the level of risk management for loans overseas this year as the global economy is likely to pick up in the second half of 2024.

While raising its guard for banking, it plans to launch more non-banking businesses such as securities and asset management in the Southeast Asian region. As part of the move, the group launched Hana Asset Management Asia, an asset manager in Singapore last year.

HAMA will look into various alternative assets and become a hub of asset management in Southeast Asia, while cooperating with local tech firms to strengthen the digital retail business, the group said.

Hana said it will establish an “Asian belt” with HAMA, its affiliate Hana Bank branches in Southeast Asia and the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam for more synergy. Hana holds a major stake in BIDV and BIDV Securities.

For its business in the US and Europe, Hana Financial Group said it will join hands with strategic partners to broaden its investment banking and corporate financing businesses.

The group is working on strengthening its investment banking sector in New York, London, Singapore and Sydney.

Additionally, Hana Financial Group plans to have more employees who can be dispatched to overseas branches. It currently has about 140 talented employees globally who can be assigned to international positions but hopes to increase the pool to 220 by the end of this year.

Though the group's global talent pool has been managed separately by each affiliate, it plans to integrate its personnel system for unified growth.

For further cooperation among its overseas offices, the group hopes to improve the efficiency of its global network through the introduction of the new computerized system, BankHive. The system has been installed in 24 branches in 17 countries as of August 2022. It plans to install the new system in its Canada and China offices this year.

One of the agenda items for the group is to make its employees across the world feel as if they belong with the company, regardless of the work locations.

The group’s catchphrase is "One Team, Whole Global," calling for the cooperation of all employees across the world. It distributed the group's mission, vision and value in eleven languages, including English, Mandarin, Japanese and German in an attempt to help its employees understand the group’s identity.

In January 2023, it invited 65 overseas employees to Korea for a workshop. It plans to hold more such programs on a regular basis.

By Im Eun-byel(silverstar@heraldcorp.com)