Eunmi Lee, Toss Bank CEO, Achieves First Profit in 3 Years: "Solving Problems from the Customer's Perspective"

Lecture at the FKI Jeju Summer Forum on the 17th
"Customer-first philosophy is our company credo"
On the future of digital banks: "Room for growth remains"

Eunmi Lee, CEO of Toss Bank, took the stage at the '38th CEO Jeju Summer Forum' hosted by the Federation of Korean Industries at Lotte Hotel Jeju on the 17th, and cited "differentiated strategies and features" as the driving force behind the company's first-ever profit in just three years since its founding.

Eunmi Lee, CEO of Toss Bank, is giving a presentation on "The Future of Digital Banking and Toss Bank's Success Formula" at the '2025 Hankyung CEO Jeju Summer Forum' held on the 17th at Lotte Hotel Jeju. Photo by Hankyung

On this day, Lee delivered a keynote speech at the forum, sharing the digital bank's journey over the past three years, its success formula, and future plans. Toss Bank, where she serves as CEO, has shown remarkable progress in the rapidly growing digital banking sector. Although the bank was established only three years and nine months ago, in October 2021, it managed to turn around a loss of 17.5 billion KRW in 2023 to a net profit of 45.7 billion KRW last year. The number of customers has surpassed 13 million. These achievements have come just one year and four months after Lee took office.

Lee stated, "As the 20th and youngest player among 19 existing major banks, we are crafting our own strategies in a fiercely competitive environment," adding, "Differentiation is essential because we cannot survive by simply doing what traditional banks do."

She also highlighted the fundamental characteristic of digital banks, which must handle all banking services exclusively through mobile without any offline branches, and said that a "more complete digital design was necessary." She further emphasized that, as the "youngest" and a "latecomer" among major banks, building trust was both the biggest challenge and the starting point for Toss Bank.

Lee defined Toss Bank's approach to innovation as a "customer-first philosophy," explaining, "We adopted a method of solving every problem from the customer's perspective and persistently tested even minor differences such as button placement and the number of clicks."

She stressed that achieving customer-centric innovation requires three elements: products and services, technological capability, and organizational culture. She also introduced specific examples implemented by Toss Bank, such as "Receiving Interest Now," "Jeonse Deposit Loan Alerts," and "Integrated HF Korea Housing Finance Corporation Guarantee Insurance." The company's unique organizational culture was also cited as a background for its innovation. Lee said, "At Toss Bank, we aimed to eliminate as many factors as possible that make people not want to work, and to strengthen an environment that allows for focus and rapid execution," adding, "We consider minimizing reporting to be an important value."

As Toss Bank's goal, Lee stated, "We aim to provide a banking experience that customers cannot go back from." She added, "I want to hear feedback that, after trying our service once, customers can't use anything else," and emphasized that the company is also striving for sustainable growth. Regarding the future of the digital banking market, she said, "It is still in its early stages," noting, "The number of subscribers to the three digital banks in Korea has increased ninefold, but their market share is still less than 10 percent. Although the number of subscribers appears large, the product market share is low, which means there is significant room for growth."