[Reporter Jeong Seon-eun] "It is not easy to invest in the Korean market alone. Fin2B's investment requires a global approach." "Korea's GDP is 10 times smaller than that of the U.S. and China, and it is difficult to create an investment scale due to the wide gap in population," said Park Sang-soon, CEO of Fin2B, who gave a panel lecture on "Fair and Poor's Investment." "In the end, we need to increase the value of our investment by increasing the value of our company, but we need support because it is not easy to consider overseas expansion from our perspective." Park Sang-soon's lecture on the day can be summed up in three key messages. The first is to recognize the limitations of the domestic fintech market, and the second is to support domestic fintech startups to build a foundation for commercialization before making material investments. Finally, it is summed up as consideration of investment in overseas fintech operators.

According to data from Accenture, a global consulting firm, fintech investment is surging worldwide. The amount of global fintech investment, which was worth 2 trillion won in 2010 in won, increased to 25 trillion won in 2015. In particular, it is evaluated that the growth of traditional powerhouses such as the U.S. and Europe, as well as the increase in fintech investment in Asia, has been remarkable. Korea has also seen a significant increase in investment in fintech companies over the past three years. According to ROA Consulting, a consulting firm specializing in information and communication, domestic fintech investment, which was 8.4 billion won in 2014, surged to 38.5 billion won last year and exceeded 48.6 billion won this year in four months. However, it is pointed out that it is regrettable in terms of the size of fintech investment compared to the share of the Korean economy. "If we estimate the share of the Korean economy in the global economy at 2%, the amount of fintech investment should be about 500 billion won, which is similar to the global level," CEO Park Sang-soon said. "As of last year, the figure of 38.5 billion won is less than a tenth of that, and fintech investment is rapidly increasing, but the proportion of investment is small." The importance of market size to expand fintech investment was particularly emphasized. CEO Park Sang-soon explained that venture capital firms that invest in startups usually have a small stake in a company with potential growth potential and expect to earn about 10 times more after four to seven years of horizontal investment. Although the risk is high since it is an initial investment, it can make up for the rest of the failure if about 10 percent of the total portfolio hits the home run. For example, if you invest 10 billion won and own 25 percent of the shares, you have to earn 100 billion won to investors within four to seven years. In other words, it is possible to generate 40 billion won in annual profits only when the enterprise value is at least 400 billion won. "The size of the market is more important than anything else if we fail to meet the ROI," CEO Park Sang-soon said. "The size of the market is more important than anything else." There are limitations of Korean fintech startups as well. They face difficulties not only in terms of financial power but also in the process of commercialization, where they have to pay attention to customer acquisition and regulatory inspection. "If you ask a company that only has fintech to come up with a strategy, it's more like navel than navel," CEO Park Sang-soon said. "It can only be solved if banks take an approach that considers how to integrate with what banks have in the past with the attitude of doing it together." The company also mentioned the trend of shifting from a global platform to an ecosystem. Critics point out that since it is difficult for fintech startups to create ecosystems themselves, they need the help of platform operators. "If you look at Alipay in China, they support startups with their customer base, infrastructure, information, and enormous financial power," CEO Park Sang-soon said. "A startup that works like Alipay is not just a startup but a startup that is like starting with a powerful weapon." "When we use the accelerator, which is an opportunity for strategic investment and fostering startups, we will be able to increase our profits by increasing the market," CEO Park Sang-soon said. "As global joint investment is increasing, we also need to know and monitor the overseas fintech operators that are growing."

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A series of investment offers in the MaeKyung Silicon Valley IR

◆ Maekyung Silicon Valley IR ◆

"I knew that Korea's fintech history was short, but I didn't know that there were many companies with such excellent technology."

Local investors who attended the Maegyeong Silicon Valley Fintech Enterprise Briefing (IR) held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Santa Clara, California, on the 3rd (local time) gave high marks to the creative technology presented by Korean fintech companies. Under the theme of "Gateway to Korea's Fintech Industry," the IR event was held for three hours in Silicon Valley with nine Korean fintech companies, including Centby (Grand Prize), Fin2B (Best Prize), and Paycock (Best Prize), participating in the first Maegyeong Fintech Award-winning companies. This is the first time that a domestic fintech company has participated in an IR event led by a media company abroad as a group. More than 50 venture investors, including Formation Group, Asset Management Ventures (AMV), and Translink Capital (TC), led by Koo Bon-woong, CEO of LS Group, attended the event, showing high interest in "Fintech Hallyu." Rich Simony Managing Partner of Asset Management Ventures, who attended the briefing, said, "We have printed companies that can invest," and added, "We are willing to invest directly in one or two of the fintech companies that are presenting today."

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◆ Maekyung Fintech Awards / 2nd place ◆

"Fin2B is a fintech company that creates innovative solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises to raise funds." Fin2B, who was honored with the top prize at the first annual FinTech Awards, is a fintech company that operates a B2B financial direct transaction platform, as its name means "Finance to Business." The most important business model is to support small and medium-sized enterprises to conveniently raise funds at a lower cost. Fin2B was established late last year by financial experts from Boston Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm. The co-chairs are Park Sang-soon, a former CEO of BCG Seoul Office, and Min Eung-joon, an executive of LG Uplus who served as CEO of Danal Co., Ltd. The executives and employees of Fin2B also have practical experience in companies and financial fields.

It is for this reason that it is evaluated as a company with an 'Avengers' level team within the fintech start-up industry. FinTech, which is a supply chain financing (SCF) method, is actively used to meet the financing needs of SMEs. Supply chain financing is a method in which the SMEs raise funds more efficiently by utilizing various business assets arising from business relationships with large companies. Business assets that SMEs can use as a means of financing include trade receivables, inventory assets, and cash that are generated in transaction relationships. Through supply chain financing, data utilization based on B2B transaction relationships and credit reinforcement based on existing bond-debt relationships are made. This lowers the high risk of SME financing. Various supply chain financing fintech companies have emerged overseas and are growing significantly, but they are still classified as untapped areas in Korea. FinTech is currently focusing on three financial platform projects. First, the platform that is the basis of FinTech is the trade receivables discount platform. It is a platform that supports financing of SMEs as partners by utilizing the surplus funds held by institutional investors or purchasing companies. It has completed development and is about to be commercialized. The second is a future cash flow-based loan platform. This is a platform for online sellers that mediates early settlement and credit loans using their transaction and settlement data, CB data, and other big data. It is currently being developed and plans to start the service in earnest within the year. The last is the inventory asset financing platform. Based on the valuation capacity of inventory assets, inventory asset monitoring technology, and inventory asset disposal capacity, it plans to provide inventory asset security loans under reasonable conditions.

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Selected 11 companies that won the 1st Maegyeong Fintech Awards

Edward Garcia, a 36-year-old migrant worker in the Philippines, has been under great stress as he wasted a considerable amount of time due to the complicated overseas remittance system of Korean financial companies. However, his colleague recently introduced his company to "Sentby," an overseas remittance service that allows people to transfer money 24 hours a day, and he has relieved such stress. Unlike conventional overseas remittances, Sentby allows people to easily transfer money anytime through online, and also has the advantage of being able to receive money within an hour after applying for remittance. "Sentby," the winner of the 2016 Maegyeong Fintech Awards, is a new concept overseas remittance service provider using Bitcoin, an online virtual currency. Taking advantage of Bitcoin, which allows people to move freely between countries, commission fees have been lowered by up to 90 percent lower than those of banks. Its main customers are migrant workers who work in Korea and spend their living expenses in their hometowns. Paycock, which won the grand prize, is a company that has developed a credit card payment service without a mobile POS terminal. Its main targets are businesses that have been in the blind spot of credit card payment, such as food trucks, traditional markets, street vendors, chauffeur service, food delivery, and insurance planners.

Among the first award-winning companies of Maekyung FinTech Awards, companies that showed brilliant ideas in new fields such as securitizing accounts receivable, providing housing prices, and managing expenses drew attention. These are examples of the fact that technology is evolving into new service areas beyond the simple payment and remittance fields that have led the fintech trend.

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"Fin2B," which was jointly selected as the top prize along with Paycock, was expected to solve SMEs' concerns about financing through its account receivable securitization service. "Sales receivable" is a bond that occurs when a large company decides to pay later when a small and medium-sized company delivers parts. FintoB plans to significantly reduce the financing burden on SMEs by gathering investors and purchasing accounts receivable from SMEs on behalf of banks. Among the four companies that won the Excellence Award, "K&Company" is a company that provides real transaction information and market price information of row and multi-family houses using big data systems and artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence analyzes various information such as location, construction year, building materials, floors, and equilibrium to estimate market prices. "Bizplay" has developed a platform that automatically processes corporate card expenses management, which had to be handled mainly by hand. "Quarterback Technologies," which developed "PALMS," and "BSMIT," which created "FABOT," are currently the most notable companies in the robo-advisor field. In addition, "Covit" (blockchain-based global remittance), "Finda" (financial product comparison recommendation platform), "EasyMation" (virtual browser), and "Pinos" (reverse card payment system), which won the Encouragement Award, were also well received for their creative and brilliant items.

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