Hana Bank said on Jan. 26 it signed a business agreement with MegazoneCloud, an AI and cloud company, to support productive finance.

Through the agreement, Hana Bank plans to work with MegazoneCloud, the first partner in South Korea of AWS (Amazon Web Services), the top company by global cloud market share, and NVIDIA's local distributor. The partners plan to jointly identify convergence business models that combine finance with new digital technologies such as AI, cloud and data science.

Hana Bank also decided to pursue export-import finance support for the purchase of graphics processing units (GPUs) and neural processing units (NPUs) needed for AI data centres being created to achieve the government's vision of becoming one of the world's top three AI powers. It also plans to pursue direct and indirect equity investments in MegazoneCloud.

It is expected that this will not only strengthen MegazoneCloud's technological competitiveness as Asia's largest managed service provider (MSP), but also help promote the growth of South Korean big tech and semiconductor companies that are struggling to secure supplies of GPUs and NPUs.

Hana Bank CEO Ho-sung Lee (이호성) said, "Through collaboration with a leading domestic AI and cloud company, we will lead innovative financial services that combine new digital technologies and finance." He added, "We will contribute to accelerating a 'leap into the global top three AI powers' by expanding productive finance support to enhance national AI competitiveness."