President Jin Ok-dong of Shinhan Bank.

Shinhan Bank has decided to go ahead with its plan to use AI technology for the automation of its operations, this time on the analyses of documents and credit evaluations, for the first time in the commercial banking sector.

The AI technology will be the first IT to be used by a commercial bank in the country, which has been known to be slow to adapt to the changes. The bank feels that the technology should help speed up its operations, and also make its customers more at home when taking care of their businesses at the bank.

The bank will ultimately go for introducing the robotics system in its operation by putting “Handy Robot” into use to take care of the robotic process automation (RPA) of its operations. RPA means that robots will be used to handle the simple, repetitive work in banking operations.

Officials of the bank said the RPA project will be able to save some 6.5 billion won in the bank’s expenses annually, as the operation will be speeded up by boosting the circulation and effective rates, in addition to reducing the use of paper.

The bank plans to automate 30 office procedures of the 14 operation units by the end of September, which was preceded by the automation of 13 operational areas under the RPA project, including such areas remittance including the checkups on the amounts of funds remitted overseas, and the documentation of the derivative financial transactions, among others.

This year the automation will include credit analyses; the documentation of credit evaluations; and the management of individual savings accounts, including the registration of interest rates by using robotic software.

Also to be automated are retirement pension payment requests, and acceptance and filtering of remittances prohibited by the U.S. Treasury Department Overseas Asset Control Country Regulation. Around October this year, the bank will be automating the use of both AI and Big Data technologies to build a system to automatically recognize the informal papers and turn content into data, and real estate evaluations.

The automatic recognition of the papers for real estate values has been difficult because they are very diverse, with many different forms. They have been input in hand writing by clerks in charge. The bank plans to apply the system to other additional areas than credit evaluations, including foreign exchanges and retirement fund management, among others. When the automation projects are completed this year as planned in the second half of the year, the overall operation of the bank would have been changed a great deal next year.

President Jin Ok-dong plans to speed up the digitalization of the bank’s operation as fast as it can be pushed to the extent the bank will emerge as a fully digitalized bank. He pledged to digitalize the bank’s operation as much as he can when he assumed the top management of the bank in March.

He announced that many new employees will be hired with IT backgrounds for various positions that directly deal with customers, so they can determine what the customers’ needs are in the area of digitalization as fast as they can.

The rival banks have been watching the bank’s digitalization moves as the subject concerns the entire banking community in the country as the reform in the banking operation thru digitalization has been key part of their strategies.

A view of the building near South Gate in Seoul where Shinhan Bank is located. (Photos: Shinhan Bank)