New Employees With an Annual Salary of 1 Trillion Won - Chapter 65
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 65. Expansion (5)
The acquisition of Hanseo Card proceeded incredibly fast.
All negotiations were completed in just one week, and in less than a month, Hanseo Card was transferred under Tiger Fund’s ownership.
“I’ve handled corporate acquisitions many times, but this is the first time one finished so quickly. Cali Fund must have done quite a bit of groundwork – there was hardly anything for me to do.”
“Have you gotten a grasp on the card company’s situation?”
“After looking at the internal documents, I understand why Cali Fund wanted to hand over Hanseo Card to us.”
The Hanseo Card internal documents that the General Manager showed me were shocking.
The delinquency rate was at its worst, and the scale of non-performing loans exceeded imagination.
With each page I turned, the discord accumulated, and it became so unbearable to listen to that I quickly closed the materials.
“The situation is more serious than expected.”
“We need to cut out the rotten parts and fix what can be fixed. That’s what private equity funds are supposed to do in the first place.”
“May I examine the detailed data a bit more?”
“Of course. If the Deputy Branch Manager of Tiger Fund Korea Branch doesn’t look at it, who will? Report back anytime if you have good ideas.”
The Hanseo Card acquisition was something I had agreed to as well.
So I had to find a way to somehow reduce the non-performing loans problem.
For that purpose, I took the detailed data and returned to the Nexpin Office.
I was greeted by the beautiful sight of all my colleagues burying their heads in their desks, working on the patent tasks I had given them.
“I’m a bit late from visiting the Fund Office.”
“You should have come even later. Should have eaten lunch too.”
“What lunch, you should have eaten dinner too while you were at it.”
“Don’t make me talk. It’s confusing!”
Leaving behind my colleagues whose nerves were on edge, I entered my private office.
On my desk, patent drafts that hadn’t been released yet were piled high, but I couldn’t reveal them.
If I added more work here, the employees might collapse from overload.
“I need to focus on Hanseo Card.”
Right now, Hanseo Card was more urgent than patents.
To reduce the card company’s bad debt ratio, some measures had to be taken, so I examined the detailed data.
Although my financial knowledge was lacking, in the end, data is just numbers.
I organized the data by category and classified delinquency rates and non-performing loans by type.
‘There’s a similar pattern.’
When I gathered customer information with high delinquency rates, common patterns caught my eye.
At that moment, the gears in my head began to turn.
‘If I divide them by patterns, something might work?’
Repayment history, debt ratio, credit transaction period, account composition, credit inquiry frequency.
As I classified these items, a structure similar to a ranking system was created.
‘If I rank them, something might work.’
Rankings needed scores, so I created a scoring system by assigning weights to each item.
Since it was a score that quantified credit, I titled it ‘Credit Score.’
Based on this score, I could divide delinquent customers into two groups.
One was customers who could repay, the other was customers from whom recovery was virtually impossible.
For customers who could repay, introducing an interest discount policy would allow us to recover the money.
For customers from whom recovery was impossible, it was better to transfer them to professional debt collection service providers at a discounted price.
‘What should I call the unrecoverable customers? Since their credit scores are low… I guess I’ll call them credit delinquents.’
As I created things one by one, ideas kept flowing.
Each time that happened, new structures were added to the gears, and conversely, the discord began to decrease rapidly.
How beautiful was this work?
I became absorbed in the joy of erasing discord and filling that space with beautiful sounds, completely forgetting to eat or drink as I immersed myself in the work.
***
Knock knock knock!
A sudden knocking sound.
“Come in.”
“Employee Lee, are you okay? You’ve been in the office for two days straight.”
“Has it already been two days? I didn’t realize it had been that long.”
“Aren’t you hungry? And you should go to the bathroom.”
Grumble!
The moment I heard the President’s words, my stomach churned.
My organs cried out in protest, and my entire body began to complain.
“First, I’ll go to the bathroom!”
“Just go home. Get some food too. They say suffering when you’re young is worth buying, but if you work like that, you’ll ruin your health. Take it easy.”
“Yes, I will.”
Without even having time to fully hear the President’s advice, I rushed to the bathroom.
After taking care of all my bodily needs, I felt reborn,
and after briefly satisfying my hunger at a convenience store, I headed to the Private Equity Office.
“General Manager! I made something related to the card companies. Do you have time?”
“…I have time, but is Employee Lee okay? Haven’t you been working continuously until now?”
“There was no timing to leave work.”
“Just give your report and go home immediately. You need to take care of your health first. I want to work with Employee Lee for a long, long time.”
I glanced at the mirror hanging on the office wall.
The image of a homeless person I often saw near the train station was reflected.
No wonder both the President and General Manager were worried.
Just looking at the mirror made me feel disgusted, so I deliberately looked away and started my report.
“Thinking about Cali Fund, I couldn’t rest for even a moment. I’ll just give my report and leave work immediately.”
“Something you made by staying up for days? I’m looking forward to it. What exactly did you make?”
“I created a credit score system. It’s structured so that clients receive benefits or sanctions according to their score range.”
Was it because it was financial industry work?
The General Manager examined the document much more thoroughly than usual.
He analyzed every single word and checked the structure of the credit score system.
“This is a more detailed version of the credit rating system.”
“The credit rating system that divides into grades 1-10 makes it difficult to accurately assess clients. Even one delinquency record can drop you to grade 7, and there are grade 1 clients who still have bankruptcy risk.”
“What an innovative approach!”
A credit rating system already existed in the financial industry.
It was a similar concept to the credit score I created, and all financial companies were processing loans or card issuances through the credit rating system.
However, the limitations of the credit rating system were clear.
An evaluation divided into just 10 levels made it difficult to precisely judge individual credit conditions, and that was directly the cause of increasing non-performing loans.
“The group with the lowest scores makes debt collection practically difficult.”
“It would be better to discount the debts of the lowest score range clients and hand them over to debt collection agencies.”
“I arbitrarily defined such clients as credit delinquents.”
“Credit delinquents. It feels a bit aggressive, but it’s also the most appropriate term.”
People with poor credit had to be cut off.
Of course, it wasn’t about cutting them off based on just one mistake or delinquency record.
The plan was to cut off only clients who had no intention of repaying at all, and in other cases, we were actually thinking of providing benefits.
“There are also clients with low credit ratings but quite high credit scores.”
“That’s a client group with long delinquency records but potential for debt recovery.”
“For such clients, implementing interest rate discount policies would make recovery quite possible.”
“If we can clear out Non-performing Loans that way, there’s no reason not to do it.”
That wasn’t the end of it.
Credit scores weren’t just for understanding the current situation.
I had created a system that could even predict future situations.
“I also created a Predictive Algorithm based on past data. By analyzing thousands of delinquency patterns, I made it possible to automatically detect warning signs like simultaneous payments at the same time and payments just before credit limits.”
“We could filter out potentially problematic clients in advance.”
“Not only that, but it can also be used to secure quality clients. We can provide benefits like fee discounts, loan rate reductions, and credit limit increases to clients with high credit scores to turn them into loyal customers.”
Implementing this system could significantly lower the overall debt ratio.
Though it was still just theory, seeing the General Manager agree suggested it wasn’t unrealistic.
“For low-credit clients, we could also reduce risk by attaching insurance linkage or guarantee conditions.”
“Exactly. By matching appropriate financial Products according to credit scores, we can achieve both profitability and soundness.”
“But wouldn’t we need more personal information to calculate accurate scores?”
The General Manager’s point was accurate.
With only internal Card Companies information like now, there were limits to analysis.
For new clients, there was almost no information available, making it difficult to even assign credit scores.
“With client consent, we could secure more information. We’re considering ways to encourage consent through interest discount events and various benefits.”
“With that approach, clients would share information without resistance.”
“Also, by encouraging payment of fixed fees like phone bills and rent through cards, we could automatically collect that data.”
“Applying this method to new clients would let us identify quality clients even before they sign up.”
Increasing the ratio of quality clients was a core factor in Card Companies’ financial soundness.
However, such processes would inevitably act as barriers to new customer acquisition.
“The problem is that doing so would complicate the card issuance process. Other Card Companies just issue cards to University Students, but if we’re the only ones being strict, new customer acquisition might become difficult.”
“That’s a concern. Quality clients are important, but if clients don’t come in at all, it’s all for nothing.”
“That’s why there must be a compelling reason to get a Hanseo Card.”
There had to be a clear reason to ‘want’ a Hanseo Card.
The most powerful weapon was ultimately benefits.
Benefits that only our Tiger Fund could provide.
“We can attach benefits linked to Rollbook.”
“That’s right. I’ve considered a 50% discount on Rollbook music services, and benefits linked to delivery services as well.”
“Good. Let’s start by organizing existing delinquent customers with credit scores first.”
The General Manager was very satisfied.
We immediately began preparing for the practical implementation of the credit score system,
and I headed to Rollbook to gather staff to plan the linked benefits.
***
“Benefits linked to Rollbook aren’t difficult. We just need to add options to the existing payment system.”
“Please prepare so that future services can also be linked.”
“I’ll configure the system so discount benefits can be applied in the Point Shop as well.”
I worked well with the Rollbook staff.
As soon as the Hanseo Card acquisition story came up, various event and benefit ideas poured out.
But there was one person who didn’t like that atmosphere.
“Just like engineering students, why are you only talking about functions and benefits?”
“Because that’s what’s most important.”
“It is important. But do customers really have a reason to get our card? Even if it’s linked to Rollbook, it’s not that different compared to other cards.”
Yu Min-jung challenged us.
As she said, excluding the Rollbook connection, there wasn’t anything special.
But considering Rollbook’s growth, that one thing alone was a powerful weapon.
“Rollbook loyal customers would have no choice but to get it.”
“That’s not enough. To capture loyal customers’ hearts at once, it needs to be connected not just functionally to Rollbook, but emotionally as well.”
“What do you mean by emotionally connected?”
Yu Min-jung beat her chest as if frustrated.
Then she opened the Point Shop and showed the popular products ranking.
“This is Rollbook’s emotion. Customers respond to these backgrounds, these characters, these icons. We need to put this on the card to make it a ‘card they want to have.'”
“You want to make the card pretty? Would that actually be effective?”
“It’s definitely effective. When you pull out a Rollbook Card in front of friends at a cafe, how would your friends react? Just getting a reaction like ‘Wow, what’s this card?’ would make them rush to get one.”
It was an emotional aspect that was difficult for me to understand.
The other staff member, who was also an engineering student, just listened to Yu Min-jung’s words.
Well, changing the card design wasn’t that difficult, so I decided to just accept it.
“Then, Min-jeong will handle the card design.”
“You know I created the background and character that hit number one in sales on Rollbook, right?”
“I heard about it during the sales report. You received over 20 million won in dividends just this month, didn’t you?”
“That’s how well I know exactly what clients want. I’ll do the card design without any incentive.”
Yu Min-jung was no longer the woman from her financially struggling days.
With her salary plus tens of millions of won from content revenue, even the clothing brands she wore had changed.
Was that why?
She even said she would give up the card design incentive.
It probably wasn’t that she wanted to sacrifice for The Company – she seemed to have other ulterior motives.
“If Min-jeong’s character goes on the card, Point Shop sales will increase even more.”
“You’re slow with emotions but quick with these calculations. It’s a kind of promotional effect.”
“Good. Try making it the way you want.”
Functional connection and emotional connection.
The market reaction was unknown, but it was certainly creating a different texture from existing cards.
Annual Salary 1 Trillion New Employee Chapter 65
E-book Publication Date | 2025.11.27
Author | Seo Oh
Publishers | Heo Heung-beom, Park Geon-won
Publishing House | Poten
Address | [04783] 10th Floor, 8 Yeonmujang 11-gil, Seongdong-gu, Seoul
Phone | 02-6320-8500
Fax | 02-6320-8585
ISBN | 9791175305892
Price | 100 won
ⓒ Seo Oh 2025
This e-book is a copyrighted work protected by copyright law.
This e-book is published under the author’s contract, so unauthorized reproduction, copying, distribution, and sharing are prohibited without written consent from both parties.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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