South Korea’s First Online-Only Bank To Open This Year

K-Bank, the South Korean online-only bank, is slated to open during 2017, marking not only the first online-only bank in the country but the first new bank to open its doors in South Korea.

According to a report, once K-Bank opens, consumers will be able to open an account using a smartphone or other mobile device and will have access to such services as transferring money and applying for loans all from their mobile devices. K-Bank has teamed up with some of the biggest companies in South Korea to launch the bank. The report noted KT Corp., the telecom giant in South Korea, owns 8 percent, while GS Retail, a unit of GS conglomerate, will own a 10 percent stake. Woori Bank and Hanwha Life Insurance of South Korea also hold stakes in K-Bank.

While K-Bank will likely be the first to launch, it’s not going to be alone for too long. The report noted that Kakao Corp., the owner of South Korea’s leading messaging app Kakao Talk, got preliminary approval to open its own online-only bank. The report noted that while K-Bank has strong backers, Kakao has some advantages including a user base of 42 million monthly active users and its existing mobile payment service. With Kakao Pay, users link a credit or debit card and can then pay bills and transfer money via the messaging app. Since Kakao Pay launched in fall 2014, it has 13 million subscribers as of the third quarter, noted the report. It had conducted around $833 million worth of transactions on the platform.