Hana Financial Group on Wednesday held a ceremony to launch a Financial Consumer Protection Charter to demonstrate its commitment to protecting financial consumers. It said it would upgrade its groupwide management system to carry out consumer protection across the group.

The launch ceremony was held with affiliate CEOs, CCOs and employees, including Chairman Ham Young-joo (함영주), in attendance. It was arranged to establish a shift in awareness and action centred on financial consumers and to strengthen trust. Group employees plan to join efforts to build a corporate culture that recognises protecting the rights and interests of financial consumers as the top value.

The charter announced on the day includes 5 key action tasks: establishing a prevention-focused consumer protection system; placing consumer interests first; swift and fair resolution of complaints and relief for 피해; transparent communication by listening to consumer opinions; and support for vulnerable financial groups and expanded financial education.

Hana Financial said it plans to step up consumer protection practices by all group employees from the launch ceremony.

Hana Bank plans to carry out employee pledges on its internal intranet. Other affiliates also plan to roll out employee pledges sequentially to spread commitment to consumer protection in practice.

Hana Financial Group also plans to formally launch a board-level Consumer Protection Committee through a resolution at its regular shareholders meeting in March. It said it first announced the committee in October last year as the first in the financial sector.

Ham said, "To establish a consumer-centred corporate culture for financial consumers, we must make consumer protection the group’s top value and core competitiveness and focus all our capabilities." He added, "As the core of finance ultimately lies in customer trust, let all employees unite to put it into practice so that the Financial Consumer Protection Charter does not remain a simple slogan."