[1mm Geumyung Talk] "Went to the bank taking half-day off for a loan, finishes within an hour if reserved"

Office Workers Taking Half-Day Off to Visit Banks
NH Nonghyup Enhances Reservation System to Ease Such Efforts

Visit After Filling Out Pre-Consultation Form on App
Complex Tasks Like Deposits, Loans, and Foreign Exchange Can Be Handled Within an Hour

On the 12th, a customer who made a visit reservation at the NH Nonghyup branch near Seodaemun Station in Seoul is conducting banking transactions.

[Asia Economy Reporter Sim Nayoung] Office worker Park Eun-jung (34) took a half-day off at the end of last month to visit a bank for a jeonse (long-term deposit lease) loan. With the jeonse price rising by 200 million KRW, she was curious about how much more she could borrow, whether there was any way to lower the interest rate even by 0.1 percentage points (p), and if it would be better to switch to monthly rent rather than paying interest. Park said, "Even though it's an era where banking can be done non-face-to-face, sometimes I get stuck using the app and wish I could get some consultation." Because it was the end of the month and many people crowded the bank, it took her more than two hours from the moment she entered the bank until she left. Park said, "I wondered if I could finish it without eating lunch and coming to the bank, so I ended up taking a half-day off. If I hadn't, I would have wasted my trip and had to come again."

Anyone who has gone to a bank and taken a number ticket has probably been surprised at the number of people waiting at least once or twice. You stare blankly at the electronic board in front of the counter wondering when your turn will come, but the number change alert only rings occasionally when you are starting to get annoyed. Since the Financial Consumer Protection Act was enforced, it takes about 30 minutes even to open a savings account, making long waits a common scene at banks. Creating ways to reduce this inconvenience for customers is also a challenge for banks.

NH Nonghyup refined and newly launched a visit reservation system for this reason. The goal is to complete banking tasks, which usually take over two hours including waiting and basic information gathering, within one hour. It starts by entering the customer center in the NH Nonghyup app and pressing the branch visit reservation button. You select the desired date and branch, then choose the required service among deposits (deposits, funds, trusts, retirement pensions), loans (credit, real estate collateral, jeonse), personal business loans, or foreign exchange consultation. Depending on the branch, there are specialized consultation staff for each service. On the morning of the reserved day, a notification is sent via KakaoTalk, and when you arrive at the bank and press the arrival notification button, a staff member immediately attends to you.

Similar to filling out a pre-examination questionnaire before a health checkup, you can also fill out a pre-consultation form before your visit. For deposits, you can write in advance about the product you want to subscribe to, your monthly income level, occupation group, experience with investment products, amount, period, and target yield. For mortgage loans, you fill in details such as property location, housing type, home ownership status, existing loans, loan purpose, and desired amount. This is to pre-deliver the information usually exchanged at the counter during the first meeting, and just by filling this out in advance, consultation time can be reduced by about 10 minutes.

Kim Jin-woo (42) said, "After watching the Nuri rocket launch, I became interested in aerospace-themed stocks and wanted to subscribe to a fund, but a colleague told me about the pre-reservation service, so I tried it myself." He added, "When I arrived at the bank, seeing the staff already familiar with my basic information and waiting for me made me feel like a VIP." Bank President Kwon Jun-hak said, "We plan to further enhance the visit reservation service by considering ways to improve customer convenience at the intersection of face-to-face and non-face-to-face services." NH Nonghyup also plans to add a feature that sends visit reservation push notifications to app users who show behavioral signs of considering investments, deposits, or loans.