Kakao Pay Raises All Employees' Salaries by 10 Million KRW
Toss Abolishes Comprehensive Wage System and Revamps Compensation
Annual 3% Uniform Raise + Biannual Ongoing Salary Negotiations
Loan Comparison Finda Grants Stock Options to Employees with Over One Year Service
[Asia Economy Reporter Minwoo Lee] Fintech (finance + technology) companies are collectively raising the salaries of their employees. Since the average annual salary of employees at traditional financial institutions such as commercial banks is approaching 100 million KRW, it is judged that simply offering a ‘blueprint’ for success is not enough to attract talent, leading these companies to emphasize substantial compensation.
According to the financial industry on the 18th, Kakao Pay announced the day before that it will uniformly increase the annual salary of all employees by 10 million KRW. This is separate from individual performance bonuses. Additionally, they are considering differential allocation of stock options. Considering the compensation plans announced last month, including increased welfare points, meal allowances, and loan interest support, the effect is that each employee’s salary will increase by about 13.6 million KRW this year. Previously, Kakao Bank also announced in November last year a uniform salary increase of 10 million KRW for all employees, stock options worth about 30% of the annual salary, and performance bonuses worth about 20% of the annual salary.
Toss also restructured its compensation system by abolishing the comprehensive wage system at the end of last year. The comprehensive wage system includes overtime, night, and holiday allowances in the contracted annual salary. Since employees cannot receive separate allowances even if they work overtime frequently, this system is disadvantageous to workers. By abolishing it, various allowances such as overtime pay for Toss employees have increased sharply. Some employees receive allowances nearly equal to their monthly salary separately. Along with this, salaries are increased by a fixed 3% annually, and additional salary negotiations are held twice a year. A Toss representative explained, "Although we did not announce a separate large-scale salary increase, the introduction of this system alone has resulted in an effect of increasing salaries by more than 20-30%."
‘Finda,’ which operates a loan comparison platform, recently presented various compensation plans to its employees. First, stock options will be granted to all employees who have worked for more than one year. Previously, stock options were given only to some employees who participated from the early stages of the company and to those in managerial positions, but now they will be distributed to all employees. Performance bonuses will also be paid in both the first and second half of the year, ranging from a minimum of 1 million KRW to up to 200% of the monthly salary. This is part of sharing the success of the company, which has grown about 180 times in scale within two years since launching its loan comparison service.
As the average annual salary of traditional financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies steadily rises and surpasses 100 million KRW, it is interpreted as a strategy to secure talent by actively offering attractive compensation. A fintech industry insider explained, "With the average wages in both the finance and IT industries rapidly increasing, fintech companies, which combine characteristics of both industries, have no choice but to offer exceptional compensation plans."
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