China’s crude oil imports fell to their lowest level in nine years in June, with rising electrification in taxis and ride-hailing seen as a key driver of lower oil use amid supply worries around the Strait of Hormuz. June imports dropped 41.3 percent year on year to 29.27 million tons. Gasoline and diesel consumption fell even as travel and freight rose, while analysts and experts expect further declines in fuel demand and refinery utilisation.

KakaoBank said its research on financial AI security and safety has been recognised at international academic conferences. The bank said four papers from its Financial Technology Research Institute were accepted in the first half of this year at ICLR, ACL and LREC. The studies cover detecting prompt injection attacks against specialised generative AI, verifying numerical calculation errors in financial data processing, and evaluating AI safety risks such as voice phishing and fraud.