Woori Bank Promotes Smarter AI Consultant Services to Better Serve Financial Customers

Lee Won-duk to take office as new president of Woori Bank. (Photos: Woori Bank)

Woori Bank announced on March 10 that it will upgrade and expand its Ai Consultant Service including an AI chatbot service.

Earlier in April 2021, Woori Bank began to develop the services and launched their pilot services in December.

The AI Consultant Service combines AI language technologies such as speech to text (STT) voice recognition, text to speech (TTS) voice synthesis, and natural language understanding (NLU) technologies. AI Chatbot communicates with people through text chats.

Inbound AI Consultant first responds to customers over their inquiries during telephone calls and puts the customers through to employees. It can handle some simple tasks on its own.

Outbound AI Consultant performs tasks that human consultants used to perform based on scenarios. It is capable of handling various tasks such as happy calls, support for arrears, and customer satisfaction surveys. It currently handles more than 10,000 calls a day.

Woori Bank announces on March 10 that it will upgrade and expand AI consulting services including AI commercial security and AI chatbot services.

With this advancement, AI Chatbot has become able not only to solve simple inquiries from financial consumers, but also provides customized answers based on customer information. It has also renewed its UIs/UXs.

Since the opening of the pilot service at the end of 2021, the number of its users has more than tripled, and its response rate has surged.

The chatbot is powered by artificial intelligence technology that finds information in various documents, making it easier for employees to find information they want and respond to financial consumers.

Financial Support for Small and Medium-Sized Korean Companies Hit by War in Ukraine

Woori Bank announced on March 8 that it will provide special financial support for small and medium-sized Korean companies which suffered from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by the end of May.

Woori Bank will provide support such as new loan support, the extension of loan repayment deadlines and reductions of interest rates and fees to small and medium-sized companies going through temporary management difficulties due to the war between Russia and Ukraine.

In the case of new loans, the lender will provide up to 500 million won in operating funds. Lower interest rates and commission reductions will provide in consideration of companies’ damage and financial situations.

Woori Bank will also offer specialized consulting related to management, finance, and tax for affected companies or companies expected to suffer damage due to the conflict.

In particular, it is also making efforts to minimize customer damage by establishing a foreign exchange response team with respect to the Ukrainian incident.

“We hope that damaged companies will be able to normalize their business operations through this support as soon as possible,” a Woori Bank official said.

“The more difficult our corporate customers feel in doing their business, the more faithfully we will help them through various inclusive financial services.”

‘Hanbok Runway’ Campaign

Woori Bank announced on March 1 that it will hold a customer-participating SNS campaign, “Hanbok Runway” in honor of the March 1 Independence Movement together with the content platform Banggooseok Research Center until March 31.

Following a similar patriotic campaign in 2021, the campaign was designed to encourage people to think about the meaning of the March 1 Independence Movement and better preserve Korea’s cultural heritages with “Hanbok,” a traditional Korean dress as a subject matter.

The campaign will be held with the “Make My Own Hanbok” contest where participants become hanbok designers and the online Hanbook Runaway part.

Woori Bank and the Banggooseok Research Center decided to produce an English version of the campaign if more than 30,000 people participate in “Hanbok Runway.” Anyone can participate in the Hanbok Runway contest on the platform and share Hanbok dresses created by them.

“As a truly all-Korean bank established in 1899 with national capital, we have prepared this campaign because we thought protecting our precious culture is what we can do today,” a Woori Bank official said.