Shinhan launches first AI finance company

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By Kim Bo-eun

Shinhan Financial Group has launched Shinhan AI, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based investment consulting company, the group said, Monday.

It is the first time for a local financial group to set up an AI-specialized company as a subsidiary.

Shinhan AI completed registration as a corporate body in January, and the group is "currently in the process of registering the company as an investment consulting business", according to a group official, Monday.

The move is in line with group chairman Cho Yong-byoung's efforts to reinvent the group as a digital leader by utilizing AI as an innovation tool to enhance bank, securities and insurance businesses.

The new entity is set to begin services in June, after the registration process is completed, the official said.

Shinhan AI aims to offer proposals for investment portfolios. It is set to utilize its AI solution "Neo", a platform incorporating IBM's computer system Watson and specialized for market forecasting and investment consulting.

It will seek to perform assisting tasks in private banking as well as offer asset management services for the general public.

Shinhan, the largest Korean financial group by assets and net profits, began a digital transformation project in 2015 to incorporate IT into finance. Shinhan AI is one of the project's achievements.

Last year, Shinhan became the first in the domestic finance sector to incorporate Watson.

Watson is an AI super computer that analyzes vast amounts of data to help make the most appropriate decision or propose a customized product.

Australia and New Zealand Bank and the Development Bank of Singapore which incorporated Watson years earlier, have been utilizing the system to process data for customer services.