Shinhan's CES debut highlights blurring of boundaries between banking and IT

Shinhan Bank's AI Concierge machine / Courtesy of Shinhan Bank

By Lee Min-hyung

Shinhan Bank will showcase its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered banking machine in Las Vegas early next year, becoming the first Korean commercial bank to showcase its IT hardware at the world's largest electronics fair.

The lender plans to promote its AI Concierge device, which was co-developed with MINDs Lab, a Korean company specializing in artificial intelligence. Shinhan hopes to showcase its state-of-the-art financial technology amid the rise of digital banking here and abroad.

Shinhan is on track to introduce AI software into its services to enable customers to carry out multiple tasks previously done by human beings, such as issuing bank certificates, when visiting the lender's digital desks. The lender also plans to increase the number of what it calls “AI bank clerks” down the road. A total of 200 AI bank clerks will work at its digital desks nationwide by the end of January of next year. The AI bank clerk is equipped with voice and image recognition technologies, according to the lender.

This year will mark the first time that a Korean bank showcases its IT device at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The tech fair is the world's most influential IT show, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. It moved online for this year's event in January, due to the global spread of the coronavirus. But the organizing committee of the fair decided to hold the event offline in 2022 for the first time in two years.

Shinhan Financial Group Chairman Cho Yong-byoung also attended the online event this year. For CES 2020, KB Financial Group Chairman Yoon Jong-kyoo and Hana Financial Group Chairman Kim Jung-tai visited the U.S. city to seek tech partnerships with global clients and find new business opportunities in the emerging digital finance sector.

“We are going to keep refining our technological expertise in AI and introducing a wider range of financial services, so customers can carry out financial transactions with more ease at our digital desks,” a spokesperson at the lender said.

Cho was also scheduled to visit Las Vegas next year, but cancelled the business trip amid growing fears over the spread of the Omicron variant. Woori Financial Group also planned to send a group of officials to the tech fair, but scrapped that plan as well due to virus fears. KB, Hana and Woori, will also all only attend the online CES next year.

“The boundary between IT and finance has been blurring rapidly since the outbreak of the pandemic, with more people preferring to make online transactions, so it has become a necessity for banks to seek fresh revenue areas in the area of technology, not in the conventional banking sector,” a financial industry source said.

CES is considered to be one of the most important events for business leaders to hold face-to-face meetings with new partners, and the chiefs of major financial holding firms also understand the importance of the event, he said.

“But the resurgence of the pandemic has blocked most of them from doing so next year,” the source said.