[비즈한국] K-Bank, the first internet-only bank in Korea, has entered into full-scale public offering procedures for its Initial Public Offering (IPO). As a three-time applicant for listing, K-Bank is taking a cautious approach to ensure success, including lowering its offering price by 20% compared to previous attempts. Attention is focused on whether K-Bank, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, will finally become the second internet-only bank to enter the domestic stock market after its third attempt.
K-Bank announced that it submitted a securities registration statement on January 13 for its listing on the KOSPI market. The total number of shares to be offered is 60 million, with a par value of 5,000 won and a desired offering price of 8,300 to 9,500 won per share. The demand forecast for domestic and foreign institutional investors will be held from February 4 to February 10. The public subscription is scheduled for two days on February 20 (Friday) and February 23 (Monday), with the listing date set for March 5.
This is K-Bank's third attempt at listing. K-Bank prepared for an IPO in 2022 and 2024 but withdrew due to market downturns and weak demand forecasts, respectively. K-Bank submitted its registration statement immediately after passing the preliminary review for listing at the Korea Exchange on the 12th. The lead underwriters are NH Investment & Securities005940 and Samsung Securities016360, with Shinhan Securities participating as part of the underwriting syndicate.
In this listing process, K-Bank has lowered its offering price by approximately 20% compared to the previous attempt, appearing to reduce risk by lowering its valuation. In the second attempt, the target price range was set at 9,500 to 12,000 won, with a Price-to-Book Ratio (PBR) of 2.56x. The number of shares offered has also been reduced from 82 million to 60 million. K-Bank explained, "We selected KakaoBank323410 of Korea and Rakuten Bank of Japan as comparison groups to calculate a reasonable offering price range, which is set at 1.38 to 1.56 times the Price-to-Book Ratio (PBR)."
The funds secured through the public offering will be used to build the foundation for its platform business. The goal is to leap forward as a comprehensive investment platform that covers all traditional investment assets and alternative products, including stocks, bonds, foreign exchange, virtual assets, and commodities, while partnering with e-commerce and lifestyle companies. It will also invest in infrastructure and system construction related to digital asset trading to expand into new businesses.
Furthermore, the bank will invest in practicing innovative and inclusive finance, which are the founding purposes of internet-only banks, and in expanding the supply of loans for low-to-medium credit borrowers. To enter the small business owner market, it will refine its loan assessment models and expand exclusive products. The bank will also recruit personnel to upgrade its banking infrastructure. To expand credit supplies for low-to-medium credit individuals, it will enhance its credit evaluation models and strengthen its non-face-to-face, data-based screening capabilities. It also plans to increase customized credit loan products for these individuals and introduce products to alleviate their existing interest rate burdens.
The industry views this as K-Bank's final attempt at listing. During a capital increase of 700 billion won in 2021, the bank signed an agreement with financial investors (FI) to complete its listing by July 2026. If the listing fails, the bank must sell the stakes of the majority shareholder, BC Card, or buy back the FI's stakes.
While the probability of a successful listing has increased by lowering expectations, the success of the offering remains uncertain given its performance and the stock trends of its peers. Although K-Bank's performance maintained an upward trend, the growth rate has slowed down. Net profit was 12.8 billion won in 2023, 128.1 billion won in 2024, and 103.4 billion won cumulatively as of the third quarter of 2025. Considering that the cumulative net profit for the third quarter of 2024 was 122.4 billion won, it effectively experienced negative growth in 2025.
Another problem is that the stock price of KakaoBank, the only listed internet-only bank and a comparable group, has struggled since its IPO. KakaoBank listed in August 2021 with an offering price of 39,000 won and reached a peak of over 94,000 won, but it has since declined, dropping to 15,800 won in October 2022. The stock price has since fluctuated between the high 10,000s and low 20,000s, recording 21,350 won as of January 16. This is nearly half of its offering price.
Whether the partnership with Dunamu will be extended in the second half of this year is also a key factor. K-Bank grew rapidly after forming a real-name account partnership in June 2020 with Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, the No. 1 virtual asset exchange in Korea. K-Bank has maintained this partnership until October 2026 by extending the term of its deposit management contract with Upbit by one year in August 2025.
K-Bank explicitly stated in its securities registration statement that "if the partnership renewal with Dunamu fails, our platform competitiveness could weaken, and a portion or all of our deposits could be withdrawn, impacting liquidity." As of the third quarter of 2025, Dunamu's share of K-Bank's fee income reached 32.6%. However, looking at the total, Dunamu's proportion is minimal; the firm banking fee income from Dunamu accounted for only 1.4% of K-Bank's operating profit in the third quarter of 2025.
Meanwhile, K-Bank, which was founded in January 2016 and is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, announced a mid-to-long-term growth strategy to reach 26 million customers and 85 trillion won in assets by 2030. Aiming to be a comprehensive digital financial platform, K-Bank has designated three areas as future growth engines: platform, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and AI/digital assets.
Accordingly, on January 15, the bank signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the 'Establishment of Global Remittance Infrastructure for Digital Assets and Stablecoins between Korea and the UAE' with Changer.ae limited, a digital asset specialist in the UAE, and BPMG, a domestic blockchain company. K-Bank CEO Choi Woo-hyung stated, "The cooperation with Changer will be an important bridgehead for K-Bank to enter the global market, especially the Middle East financial market, which holds abundant liquidity," adding, "We will present a standard for safe and efficient digital asset-based global remittances by combining the bank's reliability with blockchain's innovation."