South Korea’s Hanwha Life Insurance Co. has acquired a 4.1 percent stake in Lending Club Corp., the world’s largest peer-to-peer lender, in a move to sharpen its edge in the financial technology sector, also known as fintech.

According to the financial industry Monday, the Korean life insurer, a unit of the country’s major conglomerate Hanwha Group, currently holds a 4.1 percent stake in Lending Club listed on the U.S. stock market after it has spent around 75 billion won ($66.2 million) in total to purchase shares in the U.S lender since June. Hanwha Life has also inked a strategic partnership agreement with Lending Club upon the purchase.

Founded in 2006, Lending Club provides an online peer-to-peer lending platform that allows individuals to lend money to other individual borrowers. Its stocks started to be publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in December 2014. It is by far the world’s largest peer-to-peer lender, with total loan issuance that reached $20.7 billion as of end-June.

The latest stake purchase comes after the Korean conglomerate has embarked on the group-wide effort to seek a new growth engine in the rapidly growing fintech industry. The group has been speeding up its efforts to nurture its fintech business since late last year by appointing Kim Dong-won, the second son of the group Chairman Kim Seung-youn, as the information technology team leader at Hanwha Life Insurance to spearhead the group’s fintech project. Since Kim took the control, the insurer has formed a series of partnership with foreign fintech companies, including leading Chinese fintech company Dianrong.com.

The company has no immediate plan to buy more stakes in Lending club for now, said an unnamed official at Hanwha Life Insurance.

By Park Joon-hyung

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]