KakaoBank outpaces Hyundai Motor in market cap

KakaoBank, South Korea’s largest digital-only bank, beat out Hyundai Motor, one of the world’s largest carmakers, in terms of market capitalization on Friday morning, becoming 8th most valuable company here.

Shares of KakaoBank rose 1.85 percent to 92,300 won ($77.98) during the morning trade to surpass the 44 trillion won-mark before it closed at 1.09 percent lower to 91,000 won.

Hyundai Motor shares, meanwhile, declined more than 1 percent to 204,000 won apiece, losing the 8th position to the online bank which went public on Aug. 6. It fell further later on Friday and ended the session at 201,500 won.

The mobile banking arm under messenger giant Kakao has been seeing rapid growth after its debut as the most valuable financial company.

Prior to the listing, KakaoBank’s IPO drew a great deal of attention as its share price was set at 39,000 won, or 56 times its book value.

Founded in 2017, the digital bank had 16.7 million registered users as of the end of June and its monthly active users reached 14 million, making it South Korea‘s most-frequently-used financial app.

On Tuesday, the company reported that its net profit in the January-June period jumped 156 percent to 115 billion won on-year.

By Park Ga-young (gypark@heraldcorp.com)