Chōsen Savings Bank was founded on 1 July 1929 in Keijō (now Seoul), and opened its first local branch in Busan in October 1930.

On 9 December 1935, it moved into a new head office building facing the Bank of Chōsen, which is still extant.

[7] Like other Korean commercial banks, however, it was nationalized in the early 1960s following the May 16 coup, as the military government expropriated large shareholders on the premise that their wealth had been amassed illicitly.

[8]: 43 Korea First Bank opened a branch in London on 5 October 1978, an affiliate entity in Hong Kong on 23 May 1980, and a Chinese joint venture in Qingdao on 26 June 1996.

Meanwhile, it was privatized in 1982,[9]: 161  as part of the limited financial liberalization effort undertaken by then-president Chun Doo-hwan.