KB Financial Group Inc. plans to study whether to seek to buy South Korea’s top banking group Woori Finance Holdings Co. as part of efforts to boost the group’s competitiveness, its head nominee said Tuesday.

The Financial Services Commission, the financial regulator, plans to unveil detailed plans to privatize the state-invested Woori Finance on Wednesday, including a possible separate sale of the group’s smaller bank units.

Lim Young-rok, the chairman nominee of the KB Financial Group, said it is too early to say whether the group will seek to buy Woori Finance as the privatization plans have yet to come out.

Lim told reporters that the group plans to look into such possibility by gauging whether the potential takeover could enhance the group’s competitiveness.

The government is driving its motion to resume the sale of Woori Finance after the move fell through in 2010 and 2011 due to a lack of proper buyers. (Yonhap News)