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[Asia Economy Reporter Kiho Sung] Big tech companies (large information and communication enterprises) are expanding their workforce through large-scale new hiring. As their business expansion accelerates, securing personnel has become a pressing issue. At the same time, with an increase in voluntary retirements at commercial banks, there are expectations that many will flow into big tech companies.

According to the financial sector on the 21st, K-Bank plans to hire double-digit new employees by the end of this month. The departments recruiting personnel include five areas: Anti-Money Laundering (AML) monitoring, personal credit loan products, compliance monitoring, HR operations, and HR planning. Earlier, K-Bank also conducted recruitment for financial fraud investigation and IT inspection roles this month.

Toss Bank is also conducting ongoing recruitment in 10 departments ahead of its launch scheduled for September this year, including personal information protection, information security policy, funds, and data engineering. Toss Bank plans to add about 60 employees through this hiring, aiming to launch the internet-only bank with a total workforce of around 200.

Kakao Bank is also actively increasing its workforce ahead of its initial public offering (IPO). Since announcing plans to hire in the triple digits earlier this year, it has hired about 100 employees so far. Currently, Kakao Bank's workforce exceeds 1,000 employees.

In the fintech industry, Kakao Pay, which recently obtained a preliminary license for digital non-life insurance, is actively expanding its workforce. Kakao Non-Life Insurance (tentative name) plans to receive about 100 employees from its parent company Kakao Pay before official licensing. Kakao Pay also plans to add around 300 employees this year.

The reason big tech companies are expanding their workforce on such a large scale is due to the significant expansion of their business areas. K-Bank successfully raised 400 billion KRW through a paid-in capital increase in July last year and secured 1.25 trillion KRW in funding last month. Based on this, K-Bank plans to expand mid-interest loans and is recruiting the necessary personnel for this purpose. Toss Bank and Kakao Bank are also experiencing increased personnel demand due to the expansion of mid-interest loans. Kakao Non-Life Insurance also requires a large number of new employees as it enters new business areas.

This expansion of big tech companies contrasts with commercial banks. According to the Financial Supervisory Service’s Financial Statistics System, the number of employees at the five major commercial banks?KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori, and NH Nonghyup?was 76,946 at the end of March last year. The number of employees was 77,016 at the end of June that year but declined continuously to 74,716 by the end of March the following year. In contrast, the number of employees at internet-only banks steadily increased from 1,177 at the end of March last year to 1,340 at the end of March this year.

The financial industry expects the movement of personnel between commercial banks and big tech companies to accelerate further. Internet banks and internet non-life insurers urgently need new expertise due to business expansion. On the other hand, commercial banks appear to be hastening workforce adjustments due to rapid digital transformation. From the end of last year to early June this year, a total of 2,495 employees from the five major commercial banks took voluntary retirement. Shinhan Bank, which released 220 employees through voluntary retirement earlier this year, is accepting additional voluntary retirement applications within five months.

A financial industry official said, "Since last year, at least dozens of employees have been moving from one bank to big tech companies," adding, "Big tech companies are expanding into new business areas, so not only IT talent, which has been popular, but also talent related to credit and deposits is gaining attention."