Huge Popularity of Shinhan Bank Japan

Bank attracts 1,000 local depositers with higher deposit interest rates, as only the second local bank set up by foreign bank

Shinhan Bank Japan has been attracting a huge public interest in Tokyo since its opening on Sept. 14. Officials at the new Shinhan Bank in Japan said it has drawn over 1,000 Japanese customers who opened their accounts at the branch.
“We are truly surprised at such a tremendous attention to our bank,” they said. The bank opened it doors for business with differentiated marketing strategies. The bank will pay 1.6 percent annual interest on a three-year maturity deposits and 2 percent per annum interest rate on a 5-year deposits.
About 200 customers per day converged on the bank so that the bank had to set up a special booth just outside the bank, they said, adding that more than 90 percent of the customers are in their 50s and over.
The bank’s special deposit interest rates are three times higher than large Japanese banks pay on the similar deposits and the bank will withdraw the special interest rates by the end of the year, they said.
Those officials continued to say that had Japanese banks offered such high deposit intrest rates, they wound fail to attract such a large number of customers for the reasons that Japanese public would feel
that the Japanese banks offered such high interest rates to prevent their financl collapse. The new bank has attracted some 18 billion yen in deposits or about 210 billion won in Korean currency. The fact that Shinhan Bank Japan has been able to such a large deposit from
Japanese customers is a milestone for Korea which suffers from the lack of foreign exchange during the financial crises has a great meaning as a Korean bank operating in foreign countries can secure financial assets abroad and help the country.
To reflect the enormous popularity for the new bank, such popular media as NHK, TBS, and TV Tokyo covered the opening to highlight the launch of the second local bank set up by a foreign financial group, after Citigroup of the United States.
Shinhan Financial Group declared that ‘Carbon Offsets’ will be the key words in its future management strategy, which will be drawn up in detail in the coming months.
President Shin Sang-hoon, in a speech at a ceremony to mark the eighth anniversary of the financial group’s founding, said the entire group should be aware of the phrase so that the group will have strong competitive power in the area of green finance, which has emerged as one of the future growth engines.
Shin said, “We should develop new financial products to support the green growth strategy pushed by the government, along with research on various means and techniques to back up business firms who want to take on green growth businesses for the sake of our national competitive edge and future generations.”
In line with the group’s aim to make green financial growth its main future growth engine, the group announced its plan to push the green financial growth strategy during a meeting of affiliate presidents and key executives.
The group will participate in the development of a non-taxable long-term green deposit account and give priority to green businesses in its credit considerations so that the group may achieve carbon neutrality in the long-term perspective, Shin said.
The CEO also said the group should be alert to strengthening synergies among its affiliates, especially in the area of the development of new financial products, as so many products within new disciplines are emerging amid stiffening competition in the industry.
Shinhan Bank, a major affiliate of the group, set up Shinhan Bank Japan (SBJ), making it the first Korean bank to have a banking operation in Japan, catering to Japanese customers in the areas of loan and deposit operations.
The move is the culmination of the long-time dream of the bank’s initial founders, Korean residents in Japan, to have a Korean bank doing business in the local community in Japan.
Shinhan Bank invested 280 billion won in its new Japanese subsidiary, which is only the second foreign bank operating in Japan after one belonging to Citibank of the United States. A veteran Japanese financial expert, Satoru Miyamura, has been named to head the new bank in Japan. Shinhan Bank Japan is scheduled to open its doors in the third quarter, taking over the three branches of Shinhan Bank in Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka with combined total assets of 154.6 billion yen as of March including 105.6 billion yen in loans with most of the funds borrowed from the mother bank in Korea.
SBJ will try to attract deposits mainly from local customers and make loans with its own funds, rather than borrowing from Shinhan Bank in Korea. nw

President Lee Baek-soon of Shinhan Bank,left, hands over the bank’s flag to President Satoru Miyamura of Shinhan Bank Japan at the opening ceremony of Shinhan Bank Japan on Sept. 14 in Tokyo.