During 2016, OP will be hiring over 100 digital experts to fulfill its mission of promoting sustainable prosperity and security and get OP through this financial breakthrough.

Newspaper Tivi writes that digital experts will be needed to take on the roles of enterprise leaders and developers or heads of new projects in Blockchain technologies, IoT and cloud computing architecture.

Bloomberg Markets recognised Finland's OP Financial Group as number eight in its list of 20 strongest banks in the world.

Investing 2 billion euros in digi-services

The level of annual development expenditure during the next 5 years is set to become as high as 2 billion euros as OP is investing heavily into new modern digi-services.

OP Financial Group will soon become much more than just a financial group – the service will be expanding first into health and wellbeing, which is seen as a natural part of OP’s mission in promoting sustainable prosperity and security.

President and Group Executive Chairman of OP Financial Group Reijo Karhinen sees digitization as a challenge, but even more so as an opportunity of a lifetime. However, when changes arrive to stay, OP needs to be ready and prepared to adopt.

Karhinen says:

“We see digitization and change in customer behavior as a great opportunity for OP. When the operating environment changes, OP Financial Group must reinvent itself too.”

Reijo Karhinen, President and Group Executive Chairman of OP Financial Group

Membership in R3 consortium

Digitization of services is the next natural step for OP in this age of digital technology.

Earlier in December 2015, the group announced that they were joining a consortium partnership lead by the world’s biggest financial institutions, R3CEV. The aim of the cooperation is to establish common standards for using blockchains in fintech.

Other financial groups from Nordic countries that joined the R3 consortium include Swedish Nordea and Danish Danske Bank.

Karhinen explains:

“This is a major strategic renewal amid the dramatic transformation underway that will change our present business models and practices”.