KakaoBank targets less creditworthy customers

KakaoBank aims to increase its exposure to customers with poor credit, the internet-only bank said Thursday.

The bank plans to adopt a new credit-scoring system that takes into account both financial and non-financial data to identify those more likely to pay back loans considering their usual spending habits, even if their credit is poor for some personal reasons. It will be adopted as early as next week, the company said.

In March, the bank raised the upper limit on loans targeting low-credit customers from 50 million won ($45,000) to 70 million won.

The outstanding amount of loans to customers with poor credit totaled 1.44 trillion won as of the end of 2020. KakaoBank aims to increase the amount to 3.2 trillion won by the end of the year.

This means the bank would allow 250 billion won of loans to customers with poor credit every month until the end of the year.

The bank is forming a task force team to achieve the goal.

“We need to concentrate all our efforts to achieve our priority goal of the year, which is the expansion of loans to customers with poor credit,” said Kim Kwang-ok, CFO at KakaoBank, who also serves as head of the task force. “We will introduce related products and services as soon as possible and strengthen promotional programs.”

The internet-only bank said it has been developing various loan products targeting customers with poor credit.

“KakaoBank will make all efforts to raise the upper limit of loans and offer more benefits to customers with poor credit,” Kim added.

BY CHEA SARAH [chea.sarah@joongang.co.kr]