[1mm Financial Talk] Banks Losing Ace Developers to Ne, Ka, and To

Rising Salaries in Talent Acquisition Competition
Avoidance Due to Conservative Development Environment

Photo by Getty Images Bank

[Asia Economy Reporter Minwoo Lee] The banking sector is facing an acute shortage of developers. As large tech companies and unicorns (unlisted startups valued at over 1 trillion KRW) enter the fintech (finance + technology) market, the competition to secure talent is intensifying.

According to the financial industry on the 20th, the value of developers in the financial sector is soaring endlessly. An executive at a major commercial bank said, "It has become extremely difficult to secure developers, especially those with financial literacy and data-related skills," adding, "Many of the 'ace'-level personnel already working at banks are moving to IT companies handling fintech such as Naver, Kakao, and Toss, and we also have to compete for talent with the gaming industry and established large IT companies."

The somewhat rigid atmosphere and the conservative development environment prioritizing security have led to a trend among developers to avoid commercial banks. Coupled with the developer salary hike rally that started in the IT industry with companies like Naver and Kakao, the value of developers in the financial sector is hitting record highs daily. A financial sector official explained, "The value of data analysis developers varies greatly depending on individual ability and experience, but for so-called 'A-grade' developers, the minimum annual salary starts at 150 million KRW and additional bonuses are expected," adding, "With fintech companies like Kakao Bank and Kakao Pay also raising wages simultaneously, the value is expected to rise even further."

In fact, Kakao Bank and Kakao Pay decided to uniformly increase employee salaries by 10 million KRW in November last year and last month, respectively. Additionally, Naver and Kakao, which have launched new management teams, are also pushing for wage increases. Naver plans to raise salaries by at least 3 million KRW regardless of employees' length of service or position. Kakao also plans to expand its salary budget by 15% this year and increase base pay by 5 million KRW. The average annual salary at both companies has already surpassed 100 million KRW.

Meanwhile, unlike the past when iOS developers for iPhone were scarce, a recent phenomenon shows a decrease in the supply of Android OS-based developers. A commercial bank official said, "For iOS, developers only need to follow the unified policy of the sole manufacturer, Apple, but for Android OS, various manufacturers release their own smartphones, so optimizing requires a lot of effort, leading to an increase in developers preferring iOS," adding, "Although any app must be developed in two versions, given the optimization competition among various fintech and banking mobile applications, this trend is unlikely to change easily."