Samsung Electronics, SK Telecom, and Hana Financial Group have deployed a private 5G smart office at Hana Financial Group’s Cheongna headquarters in Incheon. The new IT infrastructure spans 16 floors and serves around 3,000 employees, replacing fixed seating and wired desktops with 5G-enabled mobile devices backed by strong, layered enterprise security.
Navigating Strict Regulatory Mandates in the Financial Sector
Financial institutions operate under strict network-separation mandates that have historically pushed conventional Wi-Fi off-limits due to cyber risks and data leakage concerns. To clear this hurdle without chaining employees to wired ports, SK Telecom and Hana Financial Group designed an isolated wireless architecture using a dedicated 4.7 GHz frequency allocated by the Ministry of Science and ICT.
Security is enforced across the deployment using USIM-based authentication, ensuring that only registered work devices and authorized users gain entry to the internal network. Additional countermeasures include 5G wireless section encryption, subscriber information encryption, firewalls, and a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) response system. This multi-layered setup mimics the physical isolation of traditional wired infrastructures while unlocking wireless mobility.
Samsung Core Architecture and Network Slicing Capabilities
The technical foundation relies entirely on Samsung’s end-to-end network solutions. Samsung supplied the project’s radios, baseband, and cloud-native 5G Standalone core equipment. This core architecture enables advanced network slicing, a technique that segments a single physical network infrastructure into multiple virtual slices dedicated to specific business applications.
Through this slicing mechanism, Hana Financial Group’s 10 moving affiliates—including Hana Bank and Hana Financial TI—operate on independent virtual networks tailored to their individual security policies and operational requirements. All usage states, performance metrics, and outage events are monitored through a centralized management system.
Laying the Groundwork for Enterprise AI Transformation
“For AI and data to be used widely in day-to-day work, employees need a network that gives them secure, reliable access to internal systems and data from anywhere,” said Kim Goo-Young, Head of Enterprise Business Office at SK Telecom. The infrastructure lays the groundwork for enterprise AI transformation (AX), paving the way for intelligent access control, AI-powered closed-circuit television, mobile employee ID cards, and automated work services.
Eliminating Office Layout Constraints Through High-Density Mobility
By untethering approximately 3,000 workers from fixed desks, the Cheongna headquarters project eliminates the costly and time-consuming cabling work previously required whenever office layouts were reconfigured. Employees carrying 5G-enabled laptops and tablets maintain continuous access to their work environments whether sitting at a desk, collaborating in project spaces, or walking into conference rooms.
“This meaningful milestone underscores Samsung’s leadership in deploying private 5G solutions that deliver even under the most stringent security standards required by regulated industries,” said Angelo Jeongho Park, Executive Vice President and Head of Strategic Sales, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics.
