Finance

Outsider loan fraud hidden as \'normal loans\' piles up, raising questions over banks\' defences

South Korean banks are strengthening internal controls to prevent financial incidents, but loan fraud involving outsiders continues to surface. Detecting fraud is difficult when loans remain current and are managed as normal credit, or when parties disguise transactions as legitimate. Hana Bank disclosed a 2.42 billion won incident tied to suspected fraud, while recent disclosures by Korea Development Bank and Industrial Bank of Korea were reported to involve the same counterparty.

AI & Enterprise

Tech Insight: Beyond search, building AI that acts will be an advantage rivals cannot copy

Lee Kyung-jong (이경종), head of KB Kookmin Bank and KB Financial Group’s Financial AI2 Center, said AI competitiveness comes from trusted data that agents can act on, not from models. He said most corporate AI still functions as search, requiring staff to verify and enter results. KB is building an environment for “acting AI” by reshaping data around meaning and using an on-demand connection structure on Snowflake, while expanding agent development across front-, mid- and back-office work.