Shinhan Bank Strives to Boost Sol Travel Card Performance... 'Wagle Wagle' [1mm Financial Talk]

An employee of Shinhan Bank, who is up for a promotion next year, has recently been sharing the sign-up link for the Shinhan SOL Travel Check Card with family and acquaintances, asking them to apply for the card. As the foreign exchange war in the banking sector heats up, Shinhan Bank, a latecomer, is putting all its efforts into the issuance performance of this card across the company.

According to the financial sector on the 15th, Shinhan Bank will launch a large-scale promotion of the 'SOL Travel Check Card' starting today, featuring members of the popular girl group NewJeans as models. Shinhan Bank released the SOL Travel Check Card on the 14th of last month, and even President Sung Hyuk Jeong has appeared on YouTube, showing great enthusiasm for the card's success. Because of this, in the early stages of the launch, even head office employees were made to promote the card, leading to internal complaints such as "Is promoting to acquaintances really a strategy?"

In particular, there are reports that for the SOL Travel Card only, performance results of unrelated departments were also evaluated and disclosed, causing dissatisfaction among employees. One employee said, "Usually, headquarters departments do not engage in product sales, so it is true that we felt considerable pressure."

Shinhan Bank's launch of this card and its push to increase performance is closely related to the success of Hana Card's 'Travelog.' The Travelog card, introduced by Hana Card in 2022, gained word-of-mouth popularity among overseas travelers by offering benefits such as fee-free currency exchange and no overseas ATM withdrawal fees, continuing its success story. According to Hana Card, the number of Travelog service subscribers has surpassed 4 million, and it has held the number one market share for overseas check cards for 13 consecutive months since January last year.

As a latecomer, Shinhan Bank added premium services such as 100% preferential exchange rates for 30 currencies worldwide, one free access each to over 1,200 airport lounges globally in the first and second half of the year, and a 5% discount at Starbucks in the U.S. Currently, the issuance performance of the Shinhan SOL Travel Card stands at approximately 299,000 accounts.

Moreover, competition has intensified as other banks also engage in a fierce battle over foreign currency services. Toss Bank launched a foreign currency account ahead of Shinhan Bank in January, promoting a 'lifetime free currency exchange foreign exchange service,' and the number of accounts opened has exceeded 600,000. KB Kookmin Bank plans to release the 'KB Kookmin Travelers Check Card' next month, and Woori Bank is also considering launching related services. Kakao Bank has signed a business agreement with fintech company Travelwallet and plans to introduce new foreign currency services.