Fubon Bank expands Korea presence into banking

Fubon Bank, Taiwan’s largest bank, is poised to open its first office in Seoul in July, expanding its footprint in South Korea beyond insurance into banking.

It has hired five employees to begin operations in Korea, after securing a license to open a Seoul office from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) earlier this year, a Fubon Financial Holdings official said on Sunday.

The bank will initially focus on corporate banking, serving Taiwanese corporate customers investing in Korea, while monitoring the domestic banking industry and regulatory trends.

It is said to be considering an expansion into consumer banking in Korea by setting up a local branch at a later stage.

The Taiwanese financial group made its first foray into Korea in 2015 through the purchase of a 48% stake in Hyundai Life Insurance Co., rebranded as Fubon Hyundai Life Insurance.

It now holds an 82.95% stake in the insurer after injecting an additional 300 billion won into the Korean firm in 2018.

It has since broadened its strategic investments in Asia’s No. 4 economy into the retail banking and credit card sectors.

In 2019, Fubon acquired a 4% stake in Woori Financial Group, the country’s fourth-largest banking group. The Taiwanese firm is also the third-largest shareholder of Hyundai Card Co. after buying a 19.98% stake in the card issuer in 2022.

With 12 trillion Taiwanese dollars ($403 billion) in assets under management, Fubon Financial Holdings also operates across China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia.

Write to Yeon-Su Shin at sys@hankyung.com
 

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.