Chairman Cho Yong-byoung of Shinhan Financial Group. (Photo: Shinhan Financial Group)

Shinhan Financial Group will become the first Korean financial organization to establish an integrated artificial intelligence (AI) contact center (AICC).

Shinhan Financial Group will unify AICC, which used to be operated by its major affiliates, into one.

Shinhan Bank President Jin Ok-dong recently received a business report on promoting Shinhan Financial Group’s integrated AI contact center, according to sources in the financial industry on June 10.

The reason Jin was briefed on the group's integrated AI contact center was due to the Digital Guardian System run at the Shinhan Financial Group level.

Under the system, Shinhan Financial Group affiliates assume guardianship in five core technologies (AI, big data, cloud computing, blockchain and healthcare) and the new business sector, respectively.

Currently, Shinhan Bank is tasked with playing the role of guardian for the AI sector.

These days, AICCs’ role is growing in importance in the non-face-to-face era. They have recently been playing a leading role in collecting customer data by taking questions about financial products from customers.

In particular, as digital technologies such as AI and big data have advanced, business processing has become faster and customer analysis has become easier.

Shinhan Financial Group has found ways to reduce costs and appropriately utilize customer information of affiliates by integrating contact centers operated by affiliates to prevent overlapping investments.

Currently, Shinhan Bank, Shinhan Card and Shinhan Investment are actively investing in their AICCs.

Shinhan Financial Group has determined that it is time to consider integrating them into one in order to prevent its affiliates’ overlapping investments in the same business areas and create synergies at the group level.

Shinhan Financial Group believes that integrated AICC advantages outweigh disadvantages when integrating its affiliates’ AICCs.

First of all, an integrated AICC is able to unify customer contact channels at the customer level. Data can be integrated and managed, and various products of group affiliates can be recommended based on customer consent.

It will be able to cut down on costs by reducing overlapping investments.

However, Shinhan Financial Group analyzed that the integrated AICC project may take more time than separate AICC projects by affiliates and the possibility of small and medium-sized affiliates using it may be lowered.

However, a financial group in China consolidated its call centers several years ago and enjoyed the effects of integration as robots take 40 percent of the calls from customers on their own with high efficiency in business operation.

Shinhan Financial Group will begin to design and develop the integrated system in the second half of this year by forming a task force under Shinhan Bank’s Digital Innovation Group.

Shinhan Financial Group announced on June 8 that it will recruit businesses to participate in its startup fostering platform “S² Bridge: Incheon (Shinhan Square Bridge Incheon).”

S² Bridge: Incheon is a startup development platform that provides various programs such as the discovery and incubation of startups and investment in them and giving support to them for their global expansion in the field of bio-tech, healthcare and innovative technology related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The recruitment process will run from June 8 to 24 and a total of 20 companies will be selected. Shinhan Financial Group will select 15 startups in the smart city sector, including green energy, smart infrastructure and digital technology.

Five will be chosen in the bio-tech and health sector, including innovative antibody-based drugs, digital treatments, and materials, parts and equipment used in the bio-tech industry.

In particular, this selection is the first collaboration since Shinhan Financial Group’s partnership with Google.

In addition, the financial group will provide customized scale-up programs, such as providing startups with opportunities to collaborate with large companies, attracting investments, consulting on technology commercialization and increasing business capabilities in conjunction with its partners.