Hana Financial Group Chair and CEO Ham Young-joo turned to stablecoins as a new growth engine in his New Year’s message, as technology-driven shifts accelerate the flow of money from traditional banks into emerging sectors.
“We must proactively design and build a complete ecosystem encompassing the issuance, distribution, use and circulation of coin-based assets,” Ham said Friday. “As the digital financial paradigm is being reshaped, we need to go beyond simply remaining a participant operating within a given framework.”
With the incorporation of digital assets into the regulatory framework still under political debate, Ham said the impact of stablecoins remains difficult to predict.
“We need fundamental innovation to endure the coming tides, however high they may be,” he said, calling for cross-sector partnerships at home and abroad to secure a broad distribution network once stablecoins enter wider use.
Ham also underscored the need to reduce the group’s heavy reliance on banking and push further into non-banking businesses, as advances in artificial intelligence and changes in money-movement patterns accelerate a broader structural transition in finance.
“The bank, which has long served as the group’s flagship, is facing a crisis,” he said, warning that past success and sheer scale are no longer sufficient to ensure survival.
Against that backdrop, the veteran financial executive urged what he described as innovation “on the level of redesign,” including a sweeping overhaul of operations spanning investment banking, risk management and corporate-lending assessments. He also called for organizational changes to strengthen productive finance and asset management in line with evolving capital flows.
Ham reserved some of his sharpest criticism for complacency within the group. “Our non-banking units continue to underperform despite favorable market conditions. … We must overcome pervasive apathy and complacency and pursue new opportunities with a sense of urgency to navigate the crisis.”
jwc@heraldcorp.com