[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Min-young] The number of subscribers to integrated membership applications (apps) serviced by major financial groups has surpassed 43 million. Since 2015, when Hana Financial Group led the way, the membership services introduced by the five major groups have been evaluated as having become ingrained in the daily lives of financial consumers.
According to the financial sector on the 5th, the number of subscribers to the integrated membership services of the five major groups?Shinhan, KB, Hana, Woori, and NH Nonghyup?was counted at 43.22 million as of the end of last month. Considering that Statistics Korea estimates the population of South Korea this year to be about 51.78 million, more than 8 out of 10 people in the country are using financial group memberships.
Integrated membership is a financial platform designed to allow the use of all services such as banking, cards, and insurance within the same group at once. Points and benefits previously provided separately by affiliates have also been combined into one. It can be compared to CJ ONE points or Lotte L.Points.
Hana Financial, which was the first in the financial sector to launch an integrated membership service, is the most proactive. Starting from the idea of Chairman Kim Jung-tae of Hana Financial, in October 2015, they introduced ‘Hana Members,’ which combined the memberships of group companies such as banks, cards, and savings banks into one. As of the end of last month, Hana Members had 16.1 million subscribers. The number of new subscribers increases by 100,000 every month.
The advantage of this company’s integrated points, Hana Money, is that it can be used freely like cash. In addition to free simple remittance services, the Global Loyalty Network (GLN) service, which allows convenient use of Hana Money overseas without currency exchange, and the exchange wallet, which lets users exchange foreign currency within the app and use it when needed, are also popular. The number of Hana Money usage transactions exceeded 111.9 million as of the end of last month, and the cumulative amount in the exchange wallet reached 1.1 billion dollars as of the end of last year.
Shinhan Financial Group’s ‘Shinhan Plus,’ launched in August 2018, has also secured 12.3 million cumulative subscribers. Shinhan Plus is an open API-based platform that is embedded in existing group company apps such as Shinhan Bank’s SOL, Shinhan Card’s PayFan, Shinhan Financial Investment’s Shinhan iAlpha, and Shinhan Life Insurance’s Smart Window app, making it highly accessible without a separate app. Currently, Shinhan Plus can also be used in Asia, including Thailand and Japan.
Woori Financial Group’s ‘Wibee Members’ has gathered 7.7 million subscribers. Wibee Members is the second financial membership service to be launched after Hana Members. It has the advantage of wide versatility as anyone can join, even if they are not customers of Woori Bank or Woori Card.
NH Nonghyup Financial’s ‘NH Members’ is a Nonghyup membership platform that covers both Nonghyup’s distribution and finance. It was launched at the level of the Nonghyup Central Association in February last year and gathered about 2.2 million subscribers within a year. According to Nonghyup Financial, including existing Chaeum Points members, the number of Nonghyup Financial membership subscribers reaches about 24.4 million.
KB Financial also has about 9.54 million members, including 4.9 million ‘Liiv Mate’ subscribers and 4.64 million Liiv Mobile users.
Financial companies are known to be preparing innovative services that will surpass internet-only banks and fintech (finance + technology) companies. A financial sector official said, “The competition to present differentiated services as a true lifestyle financial platform, beyond simply accumulating and using points in the app, will continue.”
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
