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The story
With capital provided by Korean businessmen residing in Japan, Lee Hee-gun founded Shinhan Bank on 7 July 1982 as a small venture with a capital stock of KRW 25.0 billion, 279 employees, and three branches; Kim Se-chang became its first president.
In August 2003, Shinhan Financial Group acquired more than 80 percent of shares in Chohung Bank, the successor entity of Hanseong Bank founded in 1897, and raised its stake to 100 percent in June 2004. At the time, Shinhan and Chohung were respectively fourth- and fifth-largest by assets in Korea's banking market, and their combination created the country's second-largest banking group, behind Kookmin Bank and ahead of Woori Bank and Hana Bank.
On 1 April 2006, Shinhan Bank and Chohung Bank merged into a single legal entity. Because of the prestige associated with Chohung Bank's history, the transaction was engineered so that it was Chohung that absorbed Shinhan and subsequently renamed itself Shinhan Bank.
In March 2013, the Financial Services Commission of South Korea said that Shinhan Bank reported that its Internet banking servers had been temporarily blocked. The South Korean government asserted a North Korean link in the March cyberattacks, which has been denied by Pyongyang.
From Wikipedia’s article on Shinhan Bank, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7