On April 12, KB Kookmin Bank announced it signed a business agreement on providing ESG support for SMEs with the Korea SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME) under the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, at the new building of KB Kookmin Bank in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, on April 11.
Through this agreement, the two organizations will promote the spread of awareness of ESG management among SMEs by combining SME ESG self-diagnosis services launched by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and KB Kookmin Bank and adding their SME ESG support means to it.
They expect cooperation between the Korean government and financial institutions will be further strengthened to spread ESG awareness among SMEs through the agreement.
First, the self-diagnosis services provided by the two organizations will be actively used to select SMEs with excellent ESG management and activities.
They will select excellent companies among participating companies in the ESG self-diagnosis through consultations, and then recommend them as companies which will receive support from KB Kookmin Bank and the KOSME.
KB Kookmin Bank will apply an additional interest rate cut (up to 0.4 percentage points) to companies recommended by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups when they use ESG loans at the bank.
In addition, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups will provide in-depth counseling, including on-site due diligence and ESG training and education to companies recommended by KB Kookmin Bank. It will also give them supports such as policy financing when necessary.
Moreover, by sharing their accumulated ESG self-diagnosis data, they are planning to use it in establishing ESG policies for SMEs such as upgrading ESG indicators and developing new support programs.
“SMEs need to implement ESG management amid the global spread of ESG management among companies, so support is needed to help them carry out SME activities better,” said Kim Hee-cheon, small and medium business policy officer at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups.
“With today’s agreement as strong momentum, the government and the private sector such as financial institutions will work together to support SMEs with what they actually need.”
“As ESG management is not an easy task for SMEs, KB Kookmin Bank will put its utmost into coming up with support measures and programs to alleviate their difficulties.” said Jung Moon-cheol, CEO of the Small and Medium Business Customer Group at KB Kookmin Bank.
In the meantime, KB Kookmin Bank announced on May 4 that robotic process automation (RPA) was applied to 240 tasks to realize business automation at the bank.
RPA is a solution that automates simple and repetitive tasks performed by employees with robot software.
Currently, there are a total of 240 RPA-applied tasks, of which 61 are applied to branches. Of the 61 tasks, only 36 are ‘RPA’, which automatically perform tasks under specific conditions without an employee requesting them.
As RPA takes care of simple repetitive tasks, it can be actively used as a convenient digital tool in the field and saved time will allow employees to focus more on providing consulting for customers.
RPA can boost work efficiency and productivity. It laid the foundation for employees discovering and developing RPA systems and services on their own through RPA Personal Bot, office automation software.
It lets employees take basic education as an introductory course and receive coaching from experts through development courses and develop RPA systems and services on their own.
In the second half of this year, the Personal Bot Development Contest will be held to encourage employees to develop work automation.
“RPA has passed its expansion period and is now used as a digital tool by branch employees and has become a business tool popular among employees at KB Bank Headquarters,” a KB Kookmin Bank official said.
“We will actively promote the automation of simple and repetitive tasks and take the lead in digital transformation in the field.”
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