November 24, 2024

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Shinhan Financial Group’s Chief Digital Officer Sunny Yi speaks during The Korea Herald Eurasian Economic and Cultural Forum held at The Raum in Seoul on Dec. 15. (The Korea Herald)

Integrating the world of finance and the virtual space of the metaverse is currently the biggest challenge for the global finance sector, among other tasks in the path toward digital transformation, the chief strategist for Shinhan Financial Group’s digitalization said on Dec. 15.

“The biggest issue at hand for the global finance sector is metaverse,” said Sunny Yi, chief digital officer of Shinhan Financial Group, at The Korea Herald’s Eurasian Economic & Cultural Forum.

“The sector is dealing with unprecedented tasks such as dealing with up-and-coming tech-savvy firms with no collaterals,” he added.

Traditional finance services revolve around loans backed by collateral, but new businesses such as online home rental platform operator Airbnb lack collateral in the sense of traditional finance, Yi explained.

Human resources are also a key task, with the cost of hiring new programmers in line with the current trends and updated skill sets increasing with time. Firms must also decide how to utilize their existing workforce for digital transformation as well.

For the Korean finance sector, the unique East Asian culture of using personal signature stamps in transferring ownership of assets stands as extra work for the firms, in translating the tradition into a more digital-friendly tool.

“But in the end, digital transformation is not only about evolution in technology, but how leadership and the company rewires its system,” Yi said.



By Jung Min-kyung (mkjung@heraldcorp.com)