South Korea's Hanvit Bank is to use technology from Toronto-based 724 Solutions to deliver wireless banking and investment services to its 11 million customers.
Hanvit, the second-largest financial institution in South Korea, is also planning to offer account aggregation and notification services to consumers.
The deal represents 724 Solutions' first Asian-based financial institution customer. The offering - including retail banking and investment services, LiveClips' LiveClipper capabilities, and alerts services - is slated to be rolled out throughout the first half of 2001 in both Korean and English.
Jin Man Kim, president and chief executive officer, Hanvit Bank, says 724's multilingual solutions helped differentiate the company from its competitors. He adds: "724 Solutions offers the scalability and open standards needed to interoperate with a variety of third-party financial products in areas like insurance, enabling us the flexibility to create a truly one-stop financial portal for our customers."
According to International Data Corporation (IDC), there are currently 2.9 million online banking accounts in Korea, with the number growing to 5 million by 2004 - representing roughly half of the total number of active bank accounts for that year. The Yankee Group forecasts that by 2002, mobile penetration in Korea will hit 66.65 per cent, with just over 32 million mobile phone subscribers.
"Asia is a critical market for wireless solutions, with high mobile phone penetration rates," says Greg Wolfond, CEO, 724 Solutions.