February, 16, 2010

When a person talks about Samsung, the country's biggest conglomerate, they are usually talking about Samsung Electronics, definitely the most-widely known Korean business globally.Samsung Group, however, has a lot of financial subsidiaries ― except a bank ― from securities and asset management to insurance and a credit card company.As the leading conglomerate of the country, Samsung's financial subsidiaries are top in their fields, having successfully survived the Asian financial crisis and collapse of the credit card bubble, and most recently the global financial crisis.

Samsung Life Insurance is still the country's top life insurer, with a 27-percent market share and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance is the top non-life insurer with a 31-percent share, while Samsung Securities and Samsung Investments are also among the top local firms.However, their business has been limited ― globalization has been the keyword not only for Samsung but for all Korean financial businesses to make a leap forward.

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