Providing retail loan and deposit services may seem like KB Kookmin Bank’s only business to many domestic consumers.

With a new chief executive in place to lead Korea’s leading retail bank, president and CEO Lee Kun-ho aims to change this long-standing perception to show that KB is not always about business, by further extending a helping hand to society.

KB Kookmin Bank can create its own “success story” only by increasing social sharing and contribution through efforts by its employees, the bank’s greatest asset, whose importance should be placed over its shareholders, Lee recently told his staff.

With the president’s main management philosophy of “leaving no people behind,” Lee has not only been out in the field visiting his employees at the bank’s retail branches to check their operations, but also out on the street offering help to people and children in need both in Korea and abroad since taking office a month ago.

The new president led about 300 employees to deliver meal and provide relief to people, especially the elderly living in shelters and doss-houses nationwide over the past month.

Lee paid a visit to some 5,400 people in 11 provincial cities and towns with a team of managers and employees to offer volunteer services, the bank noted.

KB Kookmin Bank is also aiming to expand social contribution in Cambodia where the Korean bank is boosting its presence through Kookmin Bank Cambodia, its wholly owned subsidiary in Phnom Penh.

Its corporate social responsibility program for Cambodia includes providing Cambodian children with heart disease treatment in Korea.

Last year, KB Kookmin Bank with the Financial Supervisory Service and the Korean Salvation Army helped three children with heart problems receive treatment in Korea.

They aim to support about 10 Cambodian children this year, the bank said.

Early this month, KB Kookmin Bank, the FSS and the Salvation Army helped Cambodian children receive medical treatment at Sejong General Hospital in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province.

KB Kookmin Bank also sends Korean student volunteers to seven other Asian countries to provide Korean language education services and help build their education infrastructure every year.

In Cambodia, for instance, the bank provides school meals, and in Myanmar, it builds Korean language centers.

(hkp@heraldcorp.com)