KB Financial Group on Tuesday opened the KB Life Yeoksam Center at KB Life Tower in Yeoksam-dong, Seoul, an insurance-bank hybrid branch combining insurance, nursing care and banking services. KB Financial said the opening will accelerate a group-wide integrated senior service operating model spanning senior customers’ full life cycle.

Attendees at the opening ceremony included Jeong Moon-cheol (정문철), CEO of KB Life, Jo Young-seo (조영서), executive vice president for strategy at KB Financial Group, and Park Byeong-gon (박병곤), an executive director at KB Kookmin Bank.

KB Financial has pursued the creation of a group-level integrated senior service model since last year, judging that preparing for old age is a complex process that extends through care and health, housing, finance and family decision-making. It aims to reduce the time, information and decision-making burdens tied to using individual services and to establish a more consistent support system.

The KB Golden Life Flagship Center unveiled this time is a hub to support key decisions needed in retirement planning. KB Financial plans to use it to build a system that supports not only senior customers’ asset management but also their broader daily lives linked to nursing care and caregiving.

The KB Golden Life Flagship Center consists of the KB Life Yeoksam Center, the country’s only insurance-bank hybrid branch, the Age Tech Lab, a technology experience space for seniors, and the KB Golden Life Education Center, which conducts research and education in nursing care, caregiving, housing, health and finance. Age tech refers to the broad range of technologies aimed at improving older adults’ quality of life.

The KB Life Yeoksam Center was designed as a personalised consulting space to respond to a super-aged society. It provides one-stop life consulting linked to insurance advice, asset management and nursing care and caregiving. For the first time in the financial industry, care consultants made up of professional nurses are stationed on site to support counselling across nursing care and caregiving, from in-home care to admission to nursing facilities.

Customers visiting the center can receive insurance checkups and contract management services through insurance private bankers, and retirement income planning consultations from WM wealth managers. KB Kookmin Bank’s KB Golden Life Center will also be operated alongside for post-retirement financial consultations, including retirement pensions and inheritance and gifts.

KB Financial plans to open the Age Tech Lab in February, linking it with nursing care consultations so customers can experience care services and the latest technologies for seniors. It plans to help senior customers directly review convenience, safety and health-management solutions through on-site experiences and make reasonable decisions. It will also pursue technology demonstrations and joint research through cooperation with industry and educational institutions.

It will also establish the KB Golden Life Education Center as an education and research hub covering senior life in general. It plans to enhance consulting expertise through training senior-specialist financial consultants and through industry-academia-linked seminars and forums, while also seeking ways to connect related businesses.

Jeong said, "Senior customers' lives are not separated into finance and nursing care." He added, "As care, housing, health and finance are connected in one flow, we will provide an environment through the Yeoksam Center where people can diagnose and design their overall later life."