Group creates foundation to finance educational and scholarship programs


KB Financial Group has been taking every chance to expand its cause marketing through donations and philanthropic works for improved customer relations and stronger connections with society.

“Putting You First,” its latest corporate social responsibility project, brings together over 25,000 workers from the banking giant to gather a total of 240,000 hours of voluntary service at nursing homes, orphanages and environmental activist groups. Yim Yeong-rok, the group’s president has been has been taking the initiative to visit elderly citizens living alone in Yangjae, southern Seoul, to deliver blankets and other winter goods.

The group has been carrying out extra philanthropic work every November and December to help the underprivileged prepare for the cold weather.

“Helping the elderly in need, helping young people find jobs and planting trees to fight desertification are some of our CSR projects to build goodwill,” an official at KB Financial said.

“Cause marketing” has been proven successful in inducing consumers to select a brand that supports social issue when choosing between it and a competitor in equal price and service. A survey by U.S. research firm Cone Communications proved that consumers are attracted to brands that have cause-related products and services. Ninety-four percent of a sample of more than 1,000 adults said they will selected a brand that promotes CSR works and 62 percent of the total said they had purchased a cause-related product. Seventy percent said they had donated to a charity run by a company.

KB Financial has been one of only four local firms that received an A+ in CSR rating run by the country’s Corporate Governance Service, a private research center monitoring corporate activities.

In its 2011 ESG Evaluation Results, which assesses environmental, social and corporate governance activities of listed firms, said KB Financial received the highest rating along with SK Telecom, POSCO and Hynix Semiconductors. An overriding majority of 86 percent, or 575 out of 668 companies, received B or lower.

“It is in our best interests to support causes for those in need and communicate better with our customers,” a KB Financial official said.

The group in May created a 20 billion won fund dubbed KB Foundation to finance a range of educational and scholarship programs. It plans to increase the size to 100 billion won by 1 percent of its profit from KB Kookmin Bank, KB Kookmin Card and KB Investment and Securities to the foundation every year.

The KB Foundation hopes to gather up to 100 billion won in total funds from the group’s subsidiaries including KB Kookmin Bank, KB Investment & Securities and KB Kookmin Card.

Under the KB Good Job campaign created in January, hosted job fairs for high school and college graduates and listed more than 20,000 jobs online for jobseekers. Its last job fair from October gathered 12,300 job seekers.

KB Kookmin Bank was the first local bank to hire trainees without college degrees in March. It has allocated 40 billion won to support companies hiring jobseekers through its Good Job campaign.

The job market has stayed tough for graduates here even as the overall jobless rate went down to a three-year low in October and November. Statistics Korea said the November jobless rate for those aged 15-29 grew 0.1 percent over a month. Hyundai Research Institute recently estimated that the actual jobless rate ― including those who have stopped looking for a job ― reached 22.1 percent this year.

KB Financial’s efforts to create jobs are in line with Seoul’s efforts for the cause. Public agencies plan to expand graduate hiring by 44 percent next year to help ease youth unemployment and encourage corresponding efforts in the private sector.

The ministry said a total of 14,400 new jobs will be created across 285 public agencies next year, up from about 10,000 for this year. It decided to increase jobs set aside for high school graduates from 3.4 percent to 20 percent next year, in a decision to encourage private firms to follow the move.

For low-income families seeking to buy home, KB has been offering fixed-rate mortgage loans.

“It has been increasingly difficult for low-income people to borrow with the benchmark going higher and the variable rates. We wanted to give security to some of those in need with our fixed-rate mortgage loan offered at 4 percent range,” KB Financial Chairman Euh Yoon-dae said.

“KB Financial strongly promotes inclusive finance,” he added.

The fixed rate mortgage loans are offer rates of 4.8 percent to 5.3 percent across up to 30 years. Separately, the group has been a long time donor for the victims of natural disasters. It has donated a total of 65 billion won since 1999 for local needy neighbors and gave 1 billon won and 500 million won each for those affected from Japanese earthquake in March and an earthquake in Sichuan Province in China in 2008.

By Cynthia J. Kim (cynthiak@heraldcorp.com)