AWS Holds Press Conference to Announce Cloud Research
Cloud Adoption Highest for Disaster Recovery
"Cloud to Be Used More for Generative AI Development"
Client K Bank: "Leveraging Cloud from App Innovation to AI"
It has been revealed that most financial institutions in South Korea have adopted public cloud services, primarily for disaster recovery purposes. Among these, more than half have chosen Amazon Web Services (AWS), citing expertise and security as key reasons.
On July 16, Kyunghoon Noh, Head of AWS Financial Services Division, stated this at the "AWS Global Financial Business Strategy and IDC Korea Financial Cloud Adoption Status Research Press Conference" held in Gangnam, Seoul. According to a joint study conducted by AWS and market research firm IDC, titled "2025 Korea Financial Sector Cloud Usage Status," 92% of all financial institutions in Korea have adopted public cloud services, regardless of their level of utilization. Public cloud refers to a model in which IT infrastructure resources provided by specialized vendors are used on a pay-as-you-go basis, without incurring separate setup costs. The two companies conducted a quantitative survey online and via phone from February to April this year, targeting 150 financial institutions, including banks.
Kyunghoon Noh, Head of AWS Financial Services Division, and Daesan Cha, CIO of K Bank, are answering questions. AWS
By sector, the banking industry recorded the lowest adoption rate at 80%. Of the banks surveyed, 10% are neither currently using public cloud services nor planning to adopt them, while another 10% plan to adopt public cloud within the next three years. In contrast, all companies in the card and cryptocurrency sectors have adopted public cloud services, followed by insurance (97%), securities (97%), and fintech (finance + technology, 95%).
Financial institutions identified disaster recovery as the most important element in their cloud strategies for the next three years. When asked about the top priorities for cloud strategies in Korea's financial sector, 42% of respondents cited "disaster recovery and business continuity assurance" as the most important. This was followed by "improving productivity through IT operations automation" (35%) and "accelerating financial service launches and enhancing market responsiveness" (34%). In addition, 64% of financial institutions that are currently using or planning to use cloud services said they would increase their public cloud budgets, with 61% citing shorter product and service development cycles as the primary reason.
More than half (53%) of financial institutions using public cloud services are utilizing AWS. The main reasons for selecting AWS were industry expertise and references (45%), followed by integration capabilities (44%), and security and regulatory compliance (42%). Furthermore, 64% of South Korean financial institutions are using public cloud for application development and operation, and about two-thirds responded that they plan to further leverage cloud services to utilize generative artificial intelligence (AI).
However, Kyunghoon Noh noted that the pace of cloud adoption in Korea is slower compared to other countries. He stated, "Even within AWS, demand for cloud services in the financial sector is increasing," but added, "The adoption rate is relatively slow compared to other countries." He further emphasized, "Although many financial institutions have adopted cloud services, there are significant differences in understanding and internal capabilities among institutions, so it is also important to meet these varying needs."
Meanwhile, K Bank, an internet bank and one of AWS's clients, unveiled its data platform and generative AI strategy at the event. Daesan Cha, CIO of K Bank, stated, "We are innovating app banking to flexibly respond to surges in traffic, system failures, and service expansion, based on various clouds (multi-cloud)." K Bank plans to leverage this foundation to implement a cloud-based generative AI expansion strategy. The company is developing its own generative AI and plans to utilize a cloud-based AI model that supports multimodal learning (a method that integrates and processes different types of data such as audio, images, and text) through innovative financial services.
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