South Korea's Financial Services Commission held a "Fintech, Platform for Connection" event on Tuesday chaired by FSC Chairman Lee Eok-won (이억원). At the event, the FSC said it sees the financial sector's shift to AX as an inevitable trend and set out a policy direction that uses fintech as a key driver.

Lee said, "Advances in AI are fundamentally reshaping not only the speed of change but also the way finance itself works," adding, "We are at yet another major turning point." He said financial AX is a task that can no longer be delayed and stressed that fintech must establish itself as a key driver in the AX era.

The FSC plans to move away from its existing one-size-fits-all support approach and concentrate support on areas such as AI, data, regions and youth. It also plans to pursue institutional updates to respond to a new financial environment such as stablecoins, alongside improvements to data-use regulations.

It also plans to revamp fintech support programmes. It will give extra points for strategic areas in the process of selecting recipients and provide additional support to companies with strong performance. It also plans to strengthen infrastructure support for using AI technology and expand programmes to cooperate with local companies during overseas expansion.

The FSC also plans to build region-by-region cooperation frameworks involving financial firms, local governments and startup institutions to develop fintech models linked to regional industries.

In addition, it will establish a system to centrally manage fintech support information that is currently dispersed across the FSC, financial firms, policy finance institutions and local governments. It will provide information on institutional, funding and technology support through a single window.

The FSC plans to work with related institutions to draw up detailed plans and 추진 them sequentially, starting with implementable projects such as building region-by-region cooperation frameworks.