“Can Korea's leading retail neobank become a full-service AI-first financial platform by extending from household credit into SME lending and embedded financial services?”
Founded 2016 by Kakao Corp. and Korea Investment Holdings as one of South Korea's first internet-only banks, KakaoBank launched in 2017 leveraging the KakaoTalk user base to grow rapidly in retail deposits and unsecured consumer credit. After its 2021 IPO it remained heavily retail/household-loan dependent (~95% of book). From 2023 onward it pivoted toward SME and sole-proprietor lending, with corporate loans growing ~80% YoY into 2026 as the bank repositions as an 'AI bank' and full-service financial platform.