Toss Bank Brand Guidelines: Viva Republica’s 2021 Internet Bank Inside the toss App

Viva Republica’s step into banking.

Toss Bank is the banking arm of the company behind toss, the South Korean money app. Korean Wikipedia records that Viva Republica, the fintech company founded in Seoul in 2013 by Lee Seung-gun, launched toss in 2015 as a simple money-transfer app that did away with complicated identity checks. In 2019 Viva Republica announced that it would enter internet-only banking.

The bank received its banking licence in June 2021 and began operating on 5 October 2021, Korean Wikipedia says, describing it as South Korea’s third internet-only bank. Its services run as part of the toss app rather than as a separate branch network: customers open accounts, save, borrow and manage cards on their phones. In the same year Viva Republica also launched Toss Securities, according to the same source.

Toss Bank is a separate company with its own shareholders. Its website lists them by their logos: Viva Republica’s toss sits alongside Hana Bank, Hana Card, SC First Bank, Hanwha Investment & Securities, Korea Investment Capital, the retail group E-Land and venture investors including Goodwater, Altos Ventures and Ribbit Capital. Toss Bank launched its check card in October 2021 under an exclusive agreement with Hana Card, Korean Wikipedia notes.

The bank is based in the Gangnam district of Seoul, according to its website footer, which also gives the name of its chief executive, Lee Eun-mi.

Interest from day one.

Toss Bank built its early reputation on everyday products made simpler. Its website today groups them into accounts, deposits and savings, loans, foreign exchange and cards, and opens with the line “the bank that changes banks” (in Korean, 은행을 바꾸는 은행). Its headline account, the website says, pays interest even if money stays in it for a single day.

In April 2024 the bank said it had passed 10 million customers, two years and seven months after its October 2021 launch, the Seoul business paper Asia Economy reported. The paper listed the products the bank put forward: an account paying interest even on money held for just one day; a feature called “Receive Interest Now,” which lets customers take their interest whenever they choose; and a foreign-currency account, launched in January 2024, promising free currency exchange both when buying and when selling for life. That account approached a million openings within three months, the same report said, and the bank counted 35 new services introduced in its first two years and seven months.

It also moved into business and family banking. Asia Economy reported that the bank began lending to individual business owners online in March 2022, and that it offered what the paper called the first non-face-to-face children’s account from an internet bank. Korean Wikipedia adds the Toss Youth Card, a prepaid card for 7- to 18-year-olds issued on KB Kookmin Card’s systems, alongside the main check card.

The cards have changed in small ways. The first Toss Bank check card carried no printed number, which customers looked up in the app; from cards made after 15 May 2023 the number is printed on the back, Korean Wikipedia says, and in February 2026 a K-Pass transport function was added. The bank’s website describes its check cards as coming in a range of colours.

Its newest large product is the home loan. On 27 October 2026 Toss Bank launched mortgage lending, five years after it opened, covering row houses and multi-family homes as well as apartments, the Korean paper Financial News reported. The paper noted a feature that shows each step of a loan, from application and review to signing and payout, in real time.

Design and documentation.

South Korean banks tend to present themselves with short names and simple symbols. Many trade under initials or a single word, and they usually show the Hangul name and the Latin name side by side, so that the same mark works on a branch sign in Seoul, an overseas office and a phone screen. Bright, clean colours are common across the sector, from yellows and warm tones to teals, blues and greens, set against plenty of white space.

Several banks have built their identities beyond a logo. KB Financial Group publishes its own typeface family and a cast of mascots, the Star Friends, which appear in its advertising; Hana Financial Group has its own typeface too, and offers it free to the public. Character mascots, house fonts and short slogans give these brands a friendly face that carries across advertising, apps and branches.

Much of the customer’s contact now happens on a phone. Bank websites and apps tend to be minimal and app-first, with pages organised around deposits and savings, loans, mobile banking, overseas transfers and digital wallets, and many services that once needed a branch visit are offered online. Banks also use their apps for things beyond banking, such as event ticketing or tie-ins with sports clubs.

Sport and publishing round out the picture. Korean banks sponsor athletes, teams and running and golf events, and some produce branded dramas and web series for online audiences. Their annual reports and sustainability reports are published in Korean and English and set out each group’s structure, history and identity, which makes them a useful starting point for anyone studying how these brands are built.

“The bank that changes banks.”

The bank has started to set out its aims in formal reports. In July 2026 it published its first sustainability report since launch, The Herald Business reported, quoting the chief executive’s description of it as the bank’s first public account of how it is shaping finance. The report frames the bank’s strategy as “questioning what is taken for granted in finance and setting new standards,” and lists work on access for teenagers, older customers and people with visual impairments, continuing changes to its app design based on how customers use it, and paperless digital banking.

Its website follows the same pattern. Each product area gets one short line in plain Korean: deposits that pay interest the moment money is placed, foreign exchange with no fees when buying or selling, loans “from emergency money to buying a home,” and a customer centre open around the clock, every day of the year. Banking itself happens in the toss app, which Korean Wikipedia describes as the place where Toss Bank runs.

For a design guide, Toss Bank shows how a bank can present itself almost entirely through a phone screen, borrowing the look and voice of the app that launched it. Compare KakaoBank, another Korean internet-only bank, and Hana Bank, one of Toss Bank’s shareholders. For this guide we use a clear blue, a deep navy and a pale sky wash with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Toss Bank’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.