Woori Financial Group said on Monday it held a group Financial Consumer Protection Council meeting at its headquarters and decided to push for a shift to a prevention-focused consumer protection system as the strategic direction for financial consumer protection in 2026.

The council was arranged to move consumer protection away from post-incident responses and toward a structure that preemptively manages risk factors across all stages of financial products, from design and sales to operations.

Twelve chief consumer protection officers (CCOs) from the group and its subsidiaries attended, sharing the new consumer protection strategy and key business plans by affiliate and discussing implementation measures.

Woori Financial will pursue key tasks including strengthening governance, preventing voice phishing, preventing mis-selling of high-complexity products and preventing unsound sales practices for insurance products. It aims to support customers' reasonable judgment and reduce errors in judgment by employees.

By subsidiary, it plans to strengthen consumer protection through measures including Woori Bank's upgrade of its generative AI-based fraud detection system (FDS) and a revision of its sales system, Dongyang Life Insurance's introduction of facial recognition authentication, ABL Life Insurance's tougher sanctions on unsound sales practices, Woori Card's expansion of financial education for vulnerable groups and Woori Investment & Securities' introduction of a customer panel system.

Ko Won-myeong (고원명), an executive director and group CCO at Woori Financial Group, said bringing together CCOs from the holding company and subsidiaries was intended to elevate financial consumer protection from a simple declaration to a practical execution system. He said the meeting was an important starting point that formalised the shift to a preventive consumer protection system.