Shinhan offers interest relief to struggling borrowers

Shinhan offers interest relief to struggling borrowers

최초입력 2025.07.03 14:38:13

(Shinhan Financial Group)

Shinhan Financial Group has announced it will lower interest rates on a total of 950 billion won ($700 million) in loans for low-income borrowers starting in July 2025, reducing their interest burden by around 20 billion won.
The initiative is part of the group’s “Help-Up & Value-Up” project, the third installment in the “Value-Up” series launched under Chairman Jin Ok-dong to promote shared growth with customers.
Under the new program, Shinhan will automatically reduce all loan interest rates of 10 percent or higher to a single-digit rate of 9.8 percent for up to one year. Additionally, the bank will apply a one-percentage-point discount to all new applications for its flagship low-income credit loan from July 1st through the end of the year. Both measures will be applied automatically without requiring customer action.
This marks the first time a domestic bank has uniformly lowered double-digit interest rates to a single-digit level. The decision reflects the group’s recognition that, while most new borrowers receive single-digit rates, customers facing delinquency or credit downgrades are often charged significantly higher rates.
As of the end of June, Shinhan Bank had about 42,000 customers holding household loans with interest rates above 10 percent, amounting to 650 billion won. These customers, classified as financially vulnerable, face some of the highest debt servicing burdens.
For all newly issued low-income credit loans through year-end, Shinhan will uniformly reduce the final rate by one percentage point. The group expects about 33,000 customers to benefit from this policy, covering loans worth around 300 billion won.
The “Value-Up” campaign is central to Jin’s broader vision of enhancing customer financial well-being through long-term support. “Our shared finance projects are not short-term fixes,” he said. “They are a foundation for helping customers build stronger financial futures.”
The first phase of the initiative, “Bring-Up & Value-Up,” launched in September 2024 and enabled customers to refinance high-interest loans from savings banks with lower-interest Shinhan Bank loans. A total of 10.2 billion won in loans was refinanced under the program as of mid-June 2025, helping 574 customers save an average of 4.8 percentage points in interest. Total savings amounted to about 1 billion won, and many customers also saw improvements in their credit scores.
The second installment, “Find-Up & Value-Up,” began in June 2025 and focuses on returning dormant assets and unused benefits to customers within Shinhan Financial. Targeting roughly 5.8 million customers, the group plans to invest around 12 billion won in locating and restoring these assets.
Separately, at the forum for the second half of 2025, which took place on Tuesday, Jin urged group executives to lead Shinhan’s transformation in artificial intelligence. Describing the current AI shift as a “critical turning point” for corporate survival and long-term viability, he emphasized the need for leadership that not only understands emerging technologies but is capable of applying and executing them effectively. “In times of rapid change, leaders must be the drivers of transformation, not just observers,” Jin said.
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Shinhan offers interest relief to struggling borrowers

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