Shinhan Bank Selects Final 4 In-house Startup Teams with KT

Over 500 Innovation Ideas Submitted by Both Companies' Employees, Final 10 Teams Announced
Top 4 Teams Selected for Business Advancement and Opportunity to Spin Off Independently

At the '2022 Unicorns Demo Day' held on the 12th at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, the D-ART team from Shinhan Bank, which won the grand prize, and KT's Annyeong team, along with Shinhan Bank's Jeon Pil-hwan, Executive Vice President of the Digital Personal Division (first on the right), and Kim Yi-han, Executive Director of KT Convergence Technology Institute (first on the left), are taking a commemorative photo.

[Asia Economy Reporter Song Hwajeong] Shinhan Bank announced on the 16th that it held the '2022 UNIQUERS Demo Day' event, which fosters in-house startups and supports entrepreneurship in collaboration with KT, and finally selected four outstanding teams with innovative new business ideas.

'2022 UNIQUERS' is a joint project conducted as part of the strategic partnership agreement signed between Shinhan Bank and KT in January. It is an in-house startup idea contest designed to discover innovative ideas that transcend industry boundaries and to nurture capable leaders who will build a digital paradigm. The two companies received about 500 innovative ideas from employees and selected 10 teams with excellent ideas through first and second rounds of evaluation. The selected 10 teams underwent a five-week process to enhance their digital business planning and execution skills in a startup-style program with external experts to improve the completeness of their ideas.

At this event, the 10 teams presented their outstanding ideas, and after evaluation by both companies and external experts, two teams from Shinhan Bank and two teams from KT were selected as in-house startup cultivation teams. The grand prize for Shinhan Bank went to the D-ART team (an art artist recommendation and information platform), and the excellence award went to the Goodcanner team (a non-face-to-face counseling service matching parents and experts). KT’s grand prize was awarded to the Annyeong team (a last journey & guide service), and the excellence award went to the AI Phishing Hunter team (an AI-powered voice phishing prevention service).

Shinhan Bank will support the two finally selected teams for commercialization by providing ▲100 million KRW commercialization budget support ▲up to one year of Job-Off period ▲office space at Shinhan Xpace, among other business advancement processes, and will offer opportunities for independent spin-offs through evaluations.

A Shinhan Bank official said, "We hope that all the ideas selected this time will lead to commercialization and create new services that transcend the boundaries between finance and telecommunications," adding, "We will continue to strive to provide better services to customers in line with Shinhan Bank’s core values of 'Right, Fast, Different.'"

Meanwhile, Shinhan Bank is recruiting for the 'Shinhan Futures Lab 8th Bank Plus' and will make the final selection on the 19th. Shinhan Futures Lab is a program to discover startups that will realize innovative finance together with Shinhan Financial Group. The startups selected this time will jointly promote key projects such as new app projects and metaverse platforms.