Shinhan's digital sales department is greatly expanded

Shinhan Bank's digital sales department. [SHINHAN BANK]

Shinhan Bank is expanding its digital sales department to offer specialized services to its 750,000 customers in Seoul who prefer digital banking, it said Tuesday.

The bank said in a statement it aims to transition into a "digital bank that also has offline channels" by pushing forward digital transformation.

The move comes as internet-only banks, which operate without offline branches and save costs, emerge as strong competitors.

While the bank's digital sales department opened in September last year with some seven staff, the bank said it recently expanded the department to 39 employees working in three teams.

Also, while the department used to manage 170,000 customers, it will now cover 750,000 customers in Seoul.

The digital sales department takes bank data of customers who have not visited the bank's offline branches for over a year and offers marketing information and financial consulting via phone or mobile messenger.

"If these customers use our mobile banking app SOL, we know if they stopped while looking for a fund product or while applying for a loan through the app," a spokesperson from the bank said. "To these customers, our staff can call and ask if there's anything the bank can help, or sometimes our staff can recommend financial products that best fit customers' assets."

The bank plans to have its digital sales department cover 2.15 million customers by the second half of the year, including customers in Busan.

BY KIM JEE-HEE [kim.jeehee@joongang.co.kr]