Jung Jin-wan, President of Woori Bank, has secured a second term and will lead Woori Bank through next year. He received high praise for improving the bank’s fundamental structure, including its capital ratio, during his two-year tenure and achieving the highest quarterly net profit in history based on those improvements. Consequently, Woori Bank became the first among the five major banks with a president nearing the end of their term to confirm the reappointment of its current head.
Woori Financial Group announced that it held a meeting of its subsidiary representative director candidate nomination committee on the 13th and decided to extend President Jung’s term by one year. President Jung is scheduled to be formally appointed following a resolution at Woori Bank’s shareholders’ meeting at the end of November. His term will run until December 31, 2027.
The decision was made one and a half months after the bank president succession process began on September 30. The nomination committee applied the “2+1” system in accordance with the succession principles it had established. This method involves reviewing management performance at the point when the president’s basic two-year term expires to determine whether to grant an additional one-year term.
Starting with this presidential selection, Woori Financial Group expanded the role of the bank’s executive candidate nomination committee. After the bank’s executive nomination committee conducted a review of the president’s management performance, the chair of that committee directly participated in the holding company’s nomination committee to present opinions.
Additionally, Woori Financial Group’s nomination committee conducted a multi-faceted review of the bank president’s management performance. In addition to checking financial results, it examined materials from various aspects, including an interview with the president and reputation checks by external specialized agencies. Based on this, it focused its discussion on the achievements attained during his tenure, as well as future management continuity and the feasibility of continuing assigned tasks, before deriving a final result.
An official from the nomination committee stated, “As a result of comprehensive review by both the bank’s executive nomination committee and the holding company’s nomination committee, it was determined that Bank President Jung Jin-wan will connect his expanded capital capacity to business performance, realizing substantial growth trends, recovery in profitability, and narrowing the gap with other banks during the additional one-year term.”
The nomination committee cited the recovery of profitability through improved capital ratios as a key achievement for President Jung. Woori Bank’s Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio improved by 2.7 percentage points (P), from 13.1% at the end of 2024 to 15.8% at the end of September this year. This was due to active management of risk-weighted assets, including weeding out non-performing loans centered on the real estate rental industry.
Based on this, Woori Financial Group successfully completed the acquisitions of Dongyang Life Insurance and ABL Life Insurance and is now accelerating its business operations. In the third quarter, Woori Bank posted a record-high quarterly net profit of 1.276 trillion won, bringing its cumulative net profit for the year to 2.4006 trillion won, a 4.7% increase from the same period last year.
The digital finance sector has also been evaluated as having achieved remarkable results. Last year, Woori Bank partnered with Samsung Electronics to launch the Samsung Wallet Money service, and within one year, the number of service subscribers surpassed 3 million. Since last month, it has expanded payment locations overseas. It was evaluated that platform businesses, such as the ticket sales platform To The Moon, the corporate supply chain platform One Biz Plaza, and the Safe Settlement System, contributed to expanding its customer base.
Performance in promoting productive and inclusive finance was also reflected in the evaluation. Woori Bank supplied 27 trillion won in loans through September this year and invested 2 trillion won in sectors such as AI and energy. In inclusive finance, it promoted measures including a 7% interest rate cap on personal loans and the launch of One Dream Loans, which provide emergency living funds without credit rating restrictions.
Born in 1968, President Jung joined Woori Bank in 1995. He served as a manager at Woori America Bank in 2008, then held positions including branch manager of the Jongno 3-ga branch, head of the Institutional Investor Sales Strategy Department, head of the SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprise) Strategy Department, and head of the SME Group. In 2023, he was promoted to Executive Deputy President of the SME Group, and just one year later, in December 2024, he was appointed President of Woori Bank.
in FINANCE
