BNK Financial Group embeds consumer protection into corporate norms and culture

BNK Financial Group said Tuesday it will proactively review consumer inconveniences and disadvantages embedded across its financial products and services, and work to establish financial consumer protection as a group-wide norm and organizational culture, in line with its recently announced "Value-up 2.0" initiative.

Through "Value-up 2.0," BNK Financial has set targets of a return on equity of 10.5 percent, a Common Equity Tier 1 ratio of 12.5 percent, and a shareholder return ratio of at least 50 percent. The latest measures go beyond those quantitative financial targets, extending the vision of "Value-up 2.0" to enhancing value for all stakeholders, including customers.

At a recent group management meeting, BNK Financial discussed key consumer protection issues and decided to examine whether customers face any disadvantages or risk of misunderstanding at every stage of their financial experience — from product planning and design through system development, sales and post-sale management.

The group will conduct a focused review of so-called "dark patterns" across all affiliates, covering practices such as making enrollment easy while complicating cancellation or withdrawal procedures, displaying important information such as interest rates and fees in ways that are difficult to read, and designing mobile screens that nudge customers toward certain consents or choices.

The review will extend beyond terms and conditions and product disclosure documents to cover app default settings, methods for calculating interest rates and fees, and renewal, refinancing and cancellation procedures — examining the actual outcomes applied to customers. Through this process, the group aims to move beyond preventing mis-selling at the point of sale and proactively address what it calls "defective manufacturing" — the embedding of customer-unfavorable structures at the product and service design stage.

When launching new products or making significant service changes, the responsible department will verify in advance any potential customer disadvantages or risk of misunderstanding, and confirm that expected outcomes match actual system-applied results across enrollment, transactions, renewals and cancellations. In addition, the group will strengthen dark-pattern prevention education for staff involved in product and service planning, and will recognize employees who proactively identify and improve consumer-unfavorable elements by linking such cases to its ongoing "Consumer Rights Improvement Contest" to spread best practices.

BNK Financial Group said it will incorporate the findings of the review into group-wide standards and operating procedures, and share best practices across affiliates. The goal is for financial consumer protection to take root not as the responsibility of a specific department, but as a guiding principle and way of working for all employees.

"Under the belief that true value-up requires earning customer trust, we will establish financial consumer protection as a core norm and culture of the group," a BNK Financial Group official said. "We will continue to improve financial products and services based on customer feedback, and pursue 'Value-up 2.0' in a way that enhances value for all stakeholders — including customers, shareholders and local communities."