JB Financial Group invested 40 billion won in AI technology company Upstage to secure about a 2 percent stake. It expanded a strategic business agreement signed in September into an equity investment and will strengthen cooperation to apply AI technology across financial operations, including corporate loan screening and document processing.

JB Financial said on Monday that three affiliates, Jeonbuk Bank, Gwangju Bank and JB Woori Capital, signed a Series C-2 investment contract with Upstage totaling 40 billion won.

With the investment, JB Financial secured about a 2 percent stake in Upstage. The three affiliates led the first investment in Upstage's Series C-2 round, and Upstage plans to continue raising additional funds.

The equity investment is a follow-up measure to a "strategic partnership for cooperation in financial AI technologies and business" signed by JB Financial and Upstage on Sept. 14.

The two sides have discussed cooperation tasks since the business agreement, including jointly developing AI agents to apply to core financial operations, and decided on the equity investment to expand this into long-term business cooperation.

JB Financial has been pushing group-level AI transformation since this year and expanding the application of AI technology to tasks such as IT development, compliance and corporate lending.

After the investment, it plans to jointly develop finance-specialised AI agents with Upstage, and also 추진 AI training for employees and staff exchanges. Cooperation fields also include regional AI cooperation projects linking local governments and universities.

It plans to apply AI first to repetitive financial tasks such as document processing and screening to improve work efficiency and productivity.

JB Financial Chairman Ki-hong Kim (김기홍) said, "This investment reflects our determination to ensure that AI cooperation does not remain a declaration but leads to tangible changes at the work sites of our affiliates." He said, "We will use AI not as a simple work-assistance tool but as a means to structurally innovate the way we work and productivity."