Shinhan Financial has come to command 12 affiliated companies and 21,500 employees, becoming the largest representative financial holding company worth a total of 228 trillion won (US$ 243.1 billion) in assets.
As of March 22nd, 2007 Shinhan Financial Group became the fifth largest Korean company with 21 trillion won (US$23.5 billion) of market capitalization.
The Financial Group also corresponds to the third position in net profits among domestic corporations with over 3 trillion won (US$3.2 billion).
Before the incorporation of LC Card,Shinhan Financial Group had approximately 18 million customers. However, with the incorporation of LG Card, the customer base has increased by 6 million. Half of the entire nation of Korea now comes to transact with Shinhan Financial Group.
Officials responsible for the LG Card incorporation assessed: "By incorporating the first position credit card business, SFG has balanced its business portfolio and strengthened non-bank competitiveness.
We put together banking, securities, credit cards, insurance, and asset operation." The Group's branch network also reaches over 1,350 branches at home plus 20 branches abroad in 9 countries. Shinhan Financial Group seems to lead financial changes at home and abroad, according to these officials.
In the coming years, Shinhan Financial Group is heading toward the Global Top 50. Shinhan Financial has become not only in the second place in profits after Kookmin Bank, but has also set itself up for a competitive war with the other bank, they assert.
Shinhan Financial management declared at the first opportunity that the Group will not engage in growth-oriented competition any longer in Korea.
The Group's officials said: "Shinhan Financial is advancing step by step, establishing our vision to become a worldwide finance group by supplementing insurance and securities segments in the years to come." By diversifying non bank centered profit sources, beefing up retail business strategically and core groundwork, Shinhan Financial will prepare to accomplish group visions through the large-sized credit card market, they explained.
Anticipated of synergy creation Shinhan Financial's LG Card incorporation was the talk of the town in several aspects because the incorporation holds a big significance not only in terms of the largest incorporation scale in Korea amounting to 6.7 trillion won, but also in terms of composition reshuffle of domestic finance industry.
SFG's officials maintain that the Group is perfectly equipped with its countermeasures about domestic capital market change as the relative importance of the non banking segment reaches to 40%.
Shinhan Financial's card division is heading toward the Global Top 5, aided by its credit card business segment that already holds the tenth position in the world, according to them.
These officials assessed: "Shinhan Financial is posting number one in market share, risk management capacity, IT capacity, product development, market capacity, and cost efficiency in the credit card market."
Notably, they said: "We hold an edge commanding diverse retail financial strategy thanks to extensive customer groundwork and information that only adding 14 million new customers to our existing 18 million customers can bring."
Since Shinhan Financial has leveraged the Group's coalition market in circulation, refined oil, finance, home electric appliances and aviation, we are most favorable in securing customers, they added.
In a nutshell, Shinhan Financial is a finance group coupled with the life of the nation most closely because it has half of the nation for customers.
Change management Shinhan Financial's officials commented on anticipating synergy by saying: "The ripple effects of this incorporation will be of no small importance because the credit card segment is the core of retail finance."
Shinhan Financial anticipates profits from credit card integration to be 65 billion won (US$69.3 million) annually. From the standpoint of the entire Group, annual anticipated profit is 130 billion won (US$149 million) including cross sales.
Yet, there remain tasks which must be overcome. Shinhan Financial officials pointed out: "First of all, the most important thing in mergers is change management so as to fit LG Card's employees to Shinhan's way."
Ultimately for successful integration, they said that Shinhan Financial would commit itself to consolidating business models and channels while at the same time presenting a vision, strategy and personal affairs culture according to the fruit of one's labor and consolidating capacity The relative profit importance of and IT infrastructure.
