Composed of 90% Master's and PhD Holders, Korea's Leading AI Research Institute in Finance
262 Research Projects Completed Over Eight Years
Spreading AI Technology Across Banking, Securities, and Insurance Affiliates
Hana Financial Group's Hana Financial Convergence Technology Institute, the first dedicated artificial intelligence (AI) research and development organization in the financial sector, is driving financial innovation by integrating AI into finance.
In January 2018, Hana Financial Group established the Hana Financial Convergence Technology Institute as the first dedicated AI research and development organization in the financial industry. The institute began as an in-house independent company (CIC) of Hana Financial TI, aiming to lead the group's digital innovation in a rapidly changing financial environment. Initially, it started with about 10 members, but has since expanded to a total of 73 employees. Approximately 90% of its staff hold master's or doctoral degrees, making it the leading AI research institution in the Korean financial sector in terms of technical expertise.
Over the past eight years, the institute has completed a total of 262 research projects, building its own capabilities and internalizing AI technology. Based on these achievements, it is spreading its research results to affiliates within Hana Financial Group, including banking, securities, and insurance.
In particular, while many AI research and development organizations that emerged in the financial sector during the digital boom of the late 2010s have since disappeared, Hana Financial Convergence Technology Institute has consistently continued its AI research, and now, eight years of accumulated research are yielding tangible results.
One representative service utilizing the institute's AI research is Hana Bank's "iBooja App Future Dream Photo Exhibition Event." In this event, held on the iBooja app-a financial platform for parents and children-users could upload a child's photo and their future dream, and the app would generate a virtual image reflecting that dream. Over 5,000 images were created, making the event highly popular.
This was made possible by the institute's proprietary generative AI technology, which was also used when Hana Bank became the first bank in Korea to launch AI business cards in September last year.
The generative AI technology goes beyond simple image creation by combining with AI-OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to automatically recognize document images and automate the processing of large volumes of documents, such as credit reviews and claims, dramatically reducing work hours. With the continuous advancement of AI-OCR technology specialized for financial documents, the workload for employees has been reduced, allowing them to focus on high value-added areas.
In particular, the Transformer-based AI-OCR technology, which understands both the structure and content of documents, has been applied to various fields, including classifying and extracting key information from diverse unstructured documents, and continuously learning to recognize new patterns and complex document structures.
Representative cases of AI-OCR technology include: ▲ automatic extraction of key information from approximately 80,000 export and import documents processed annually by Hana Bank ▲ automation of IRP account tax deferral information registration at Hana Securities ▲ and vehicle mileage recognition at Hana Insurance. This technology received a software quality certification and became the first in the financial sector to obtain "GS Certification Grade 1" in September 2022.
Currently, the institute's main research areas include: ▲ data science (credit evaluation, customer management, abnormal transaction detection) ▲ asset management (AI Quant) ▲ natural language processing ▲ computer vision ▲ AI platforms ▲ and blockchain. These fields encompass both financial and non-financial sectors and focus on essential technologies for future corporate growth. The institute aims to accumulate AI technology in various fields necessary for Korea's growth, not just in finance, and to evolve into a digital innovation company.
The greatest strength of the Hana Financial Convergence Technology Institute lies in its ability to internalize AI technology through its own capabilities. This makes it easier to provide customized services for a wide range of financial customers. If relying solely on external technology, it would be difficult to offer and continuously enhance solutions tailored to the complexities of the financial sector. To address these challenges, the institute leverages its own expertise, deep understanding of financial work, and continuous retraining to deliver solutions for the complex and diverse financial industry. Additionally, it is expanding its research areas by collaborating with external specialized technology companies based on its internalized capabilities.
A representative of the Hana Financial Convergence Technology Institute stated, "Because our research must ultimately result in technology that is used in the field, we conduct research with clear roadmaps for each technology," adding, "Through eight years of accumulated results, we are laying the foundation for group employees to focus on high value-added services, and we will continue to develop practical technologies that will help Hana Financial Group grow into Korea's leading financial group."
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