Hana Financial Group, together with the Financial Supervisory Service, has produced 54 young talents in finance and artificial intelligence (AI). Participants received four months of training in financial consumer protection, financial data analysis and generative AI. They also developed financial service ideas through on-the-job mentoring and a hackathon.

Hana Financial said on July 24 it held a final results-sharing event for the 'Hana Young Finance Talent Development Project' on July 23 at Hana Bank's headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul.

The Hana Young Finance Talent Development Project is a youth finance talent development programme hosted by Hana Financial and supported by the Financial Supervisory Service, Google, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, SK Telecom and others. It started in 2022 and has graduated a total of 171 people through this year.

This year's project included 13 teams of university students, or 54 people, selected at an 'innovative technology-based idea contest' held in April.

Participants completed a practice-oriented curriculum over four months, including finance and ESG education, financial consumer protection and mentoring by industry professionals. Software training was split into basic and advanced courses covering financial data analysis, AI chatbots, generative AI, large language models (LLMs) and machine learning.

On July 15 and 16, they formed joint teams with participants in SK Telecom's AI talent development programme, 'SKT FLY AI', and took part in a hackathon. Under the theme 'AI services for an inclusive future', they proposed services to support socially vulnerable groups, promote a sustainable society and help digitally marginalised groups.

At the results-sharing event, the 'Uni Hana' team won the grand prize for proposing a platform to support companies' responses to ESG regulations. The team received a plaque and 10 million won in prize money.

A total of 30 million won in prize money was awarded to seven teams, including two teams that won excellence awards and four teams that won merit awards. The top three teams are set to be offered opportunities to visit fintech companies, startup incubators and global financial firms in London.

A Hana Financial Group official said, "We hope the talents produced through the project will grow into key personnel who will lead financial innovation." The official added, "We will continue to support talent development so young people can build their capabilities."