South Korea’s KB Financial Group nominated Hur Yin, vice president of KB Kookmin Bank, as the bank’s new chief executive officer, KB Financial Group said on Wednesday.

Hur is expected to replace Yoon Jong-kyoo, who has been doubling as chairman of KB Financial Group and CEO of KB Kookmin. Yoon will serve a second term to head the financial group. Market watchers expect that the new governance structure with a holding company and a bank separately led by Yoon and Hur would boost efficiency and enhance stability, laying a firm foundation for KB Financial Group to compete against Shinhan Financial Group to become the country’s top financial conglomerate.

KB Financial Group announced on Wednesday that it tapped Hur as the sole candidate for CEO of KB Kookmin after holding a governance committee. Hur, born in 1961, graduated from Seoul National University and started his career at Korea Long-term Credit Bank in 1988. After KB Kookmin’s acquisition of Korea Long-term Credit Bank in 1999, he served many positions including chief financial officer and vice president of KB Kookmin and took charge of many tasks such as financial affairs, credit review and corporate finance.

Hur is expected to become the youngest chief among the heads of the country’s four major lenders - KB Kookmin, Shinhan, KEB Hana and Woori. He is also the first CEO in KB Kookmin from Korea Long-term Credit Bank.

KB Kookmin is the nation’s biggest bank in terms of the number of branches with 1,064, followed by Shinhan Bank with 900 branches. Its asset amounted to 301 trillion won ($264 billion) and net profit reached 1.21 trillion won as of the first half of this year.

By Park Yoon-ye

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