Woori Financial's 2026 Playbook: Inclusive Finance, AI at Scale, and Group Synergy
At the 2026 Group Management Strategy Workshop in Jung-gu, central Seoul, Woori Financial Group Chairman Im Jong-ryong set a clear agenda for growth. Speaking to roughly 400 executives and affiliate CEOs, he outlined three priorities: expand productive and inclusive finance, execute an enterprise-wide AI transformation, and strengthen synergy across the group.
Inclusive Finance Built on Trust
Im called for capital to flow where it creates real economic value while broadening access for under-served customers. The north star: consumer protection and trust that holds up under scrutiny. "We must unwaveringly pursue inclusive finance and consumer protection based on trust," he said.
For leaders, that means hard targets for access, fair pricing, and transparent products-paired with risk controls that prevent mis-selling. If you want a wider context, the World Bank's work on financial inclusion is a useful reference point.
AI Transformation, Enterprise-Wide
The mandate is to make AI useful across the business-not just in labs. Start with clean data pipelines, accountable model governance, and clear owners for outcomes. Prioritize use cases that move the P&L: credit decisioning, collections, onboarding, fraud, and service automation.
Guardrails matter. Align with recognized principles for responsible AI-fairness, transparency, and accountability. For a practical benchmark, see the Monetary Authority of Singapore's guidance on responsible AI in finance: MAS Responsible AI.
Upskilling is the bottleneck. If you're operationalizing team capabilities by role, this curated list can help: AI courses by job function.
Group Synergy That Shows Up on the P&L
Synergy is more than cross-selling. It's shared platforms, unified data, and coordinated risk and capital decisions. Think "one client, one balance sheet, one view of risk." That unlocks lower unit costs, faster time-to-market, and a cleaner customer experience.
What Executives Can Do Now
- Set measurable inclusion targets (SMEs, under-served segments) with quarterly reporting and audit trails.
- Build a 6-9 month AI use-case portfolio; fund only what has a line of sight to ROI or risk reduction.
- Run data quality sprints on the top 20 critical data elements used in credit, fraud, and KYC.
- Stand up an AI risk committee with model inventory, testing standards, and incident playbooks.
- Create cross-entity squads for priority customer journeys (onboarding, lending, wealth).
- Align incentives: shared revenue and cost metrics across affiliates for joint wins.
- Publish a simple dashboard tracking inclusion metrics, AI impact, and synergy outcomes.
Im's message was straightforward: expand access, use AI responsibly and at scale, and operate as one group. The strategy is clear-execution is the differentiator.
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