Neobanks and the next step: kakaobank

26/08/2021Interview
Jayden Hwang, spokesperson at kakaobank, explains how their explosive growth from the very beginning set them on a path to an IPO in the near future. 


The demographics of neobank users are often surprising; it is not only young people who are signing up, but also older age brackets. What is the standard profile of your target customer? What has been key to your customer acquisition success?

KakaoBank Corp., or kakaobank, attracted 240,000 customers within the first 24 hours of its operation on July 27, 2017. It took only five days to reach 1 million customers and took less than a year to hit 10 million.
 
More than 80% of kakaobank’s customers are in the 20-40 age bracket, while the proportion of people over 50, now at around 15%, keeps increasing year over year. At the end of March, kakaobank’s customer volume was 14.3 million, 50% of the economically-active population in South Korea.  
 
kakaobank holds the largest number of active visiting users among the country’s banking applications. Since the launch of the public service in July 2017, kakaobank has been providing full-banking services including credit loans, deposit, and overseas remittances. This is one of key factors that enabled us to attract customers from the beginning. Additionally, a young-and-friendly design, unparalleled convenience including app speed, and unique and innovative products/services such as 26-week-installment saving deposit, group accounts and kakaobank mini(pre-charged account and debit card for teenagers) are the main drivers attracting customers.   

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