By Kim Yon-se

KB Financial Group has been expanding its social contribution activities such as educational programs for students and donations to the needy.

In particular, the group’s social foundation is diversifying educational and scholarship programs.

Last year, the group set up the KB Financial Public Foundation, specialized in education and research, to support economic and financial research projects.

The foundation controls 20 billion won ($17.5 million) of funds donated by KB and its subsidiaries. The group plans to enlarge this to 100 billion won by donating 1 percent of its net profits every year.

It is operating economic and financial classes and related programs and offering scholarships to secondary students from low-income families.

A program, dubbed the “KB Star Economy-Finance Class,” has drawn great interest among students and parents.

The foundation is also considering supporting academic projects in economics to support the further development of the nation.

In April 2011, Kookmin Bank, the flagship unit of KB Financial, hired eight vocational high school graduates for the first time since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis in the local banking sector.

The eight new employees have been working as tellers at the bank.

Kookmin plans to hire high school graduates to make up a certain portion of its new employees in the coming years.

Vocational high school graduates accounted for a large portion of staff at local lenders before the late 1990s, but their numbers have diminished as they were laid off by domestic banks during the financial crisis.

Later, other banks, including Shinhan Bank, the Industrial Bank of Korea, and the Korea Development Bank followed suit and started to hire those with just high school diplomas.

The financial group is also involved in matching young job seekers with small and mid-sized enterprises.

It launched a project titled “KB Good Job” in January to provide quality employment to young jobseekers.

Youth unemployment is one of the most critical social problems here as many high school and college graduates struggle to find gainful employment due to the changed industrial environment.

In addition, KB Financial has been taking every chance to expand the so-called “cause marketing” through donations and philanthropic works for improved customer relations and stronger connections with society.

“Putting You First,” its latest corporate social responsibility project, brings together over 25,000 workers from the banking giant to gather a total of 240,000 hours of voluntary service at nursing homes, orphanages and environmental activist groups.

The group has been carrying out extra philanthropic work every November and December to help the underprivileged prepare for the cold weather.

For low-income families seeking to buy a home, KB has been offering fixed-rate mortgages.

“It has been increasingly difficult for low-income people to borrow with the benchmark going higher and the variable rates. We wanted to give security to some of those in need with our fixed-rate mortgage loan offered in the 4 percent range,” a group executive said.

(kys@heraldcorp.com)