Hana Financial Opens 'Cheongna Era' With Future-Finance Hub

Hana Financial Group is preparing to open what it calls its "Cheongna era," completing a sprawling headquarters complex in Cheongna International City in Incheon that has taken about 15 years to build. Beginning in September, Hana Financial Holdings, Hana Bank and eight other affiliates will move into the site in stages, relocating roughly 2,200 employees.

When combined with staff already working at the group's existing integrated data center and the Hana Global Campus, the number of finance and IT professionals based in Cheongna is expected to reach about 4,000. Industry observers see the move as more than a simple change of address, describing it instead as a strategic redesign of how the group's digital units and financial affiliates work together.

The complex, whose construction was completed on May 21, is intended to gather subsidiaries that had been scattered across Seoul into a single location to speed up decision-making and tighten group-wide collaboration. By concentrating digital teams alongside banking, securities, card, capital and insurance units, the group aims to accelerate its push into AI transformation, data-based innovation and next-generation services such as blockchain and stablecoins.

Cheongna already serves as a digital heart for Hana. The group opened Korea's first financial-sector integrated data center there in 2017, staffed by about 1,800 IT workers, and added the Hana Global Campus in 2019 to train global finance talent. With the new headquarters now complete, the three phases of the long-running "Hana Dream Town" project have all been finished.

The decision to build in Cheongna, first made in 2012, ran counter to the industry norm of clustering core financial operations in central Seoul districts such as Yeouido and Myeongdong. Hana instead prioritized long-term digital infrastructure, and analysts say the bet has grown more relevant as competition in digital finance intensifies. The surrounding Incheon Free Economic Zone, home to bio and advanced-industry firms and close to Incheon International Airport, is also seen as favorable for expanding global operations.

The group plans to open parts of the headquarters to local residents and to expand cooperation with public institutions, financing for small businesses, and cultural and sports programs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hana Global Campus was converted into a residential treatment center, offering all 216 of its rooms and supporting care for a total of 7,634 patients over 15 months.

Hana Financial Group Chairman Ham Young-joo said the relocation would be a catalyst that lifts the pace of transformation in how the company works, adding that the group intends to complete a financial transformation embracing customers, communities and employees as it writes a new chapter in its history.