KB Financial Group is pushing an AI technology-based shift in its business model and expansion into new markets. KB Financial said on Jan. 11 it announced the plan after holding a first-half workshop on Jan. 9 attended by Chairman Yang Jong-hee and about 260 executives.

The workshop was held under the theme "Transition and Expansion for Level-Up". KB Financial plans to move through stages of reorganising its business portfolio and enhancing corporate value, then advance toward becoming a financial group for stakeholders including customers, society and shareholders.

Vice President Cho Young-seo, head of strategy, and Executive Director Na Sang-rok, head of finance, presented key tasks for shifting the business model and ways of working, and expanding into new markets and customers. They said the group must accelerate a major transformation in finance represented by productive finance, inclusive finance and trusted finance. They stressed that AX (AI Transformation) should go beyond simply adopting AI technology and be embedded across the group’s future strategy.

The group held sessions on wealth management (WM) and small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) to shift the business model. In the WM session, it discussed the "ONE KB WM strategy" to respond to accelerating money moves and deepening concentration of wealth. It set out a direction of combining group capabilities across banking, securities, insurance and asset management to protect and grow national assets. In the SME session, it shared comprehensive financial support measures that go beyond loan-based transactions to cover cash management, investment and risk management.

The workshop also featured invited lectures by outside experts. A JPMorgan economist assessed global economic trends and the outlook for the South Korean economy. Experts including a science influencer, an author and a translator gave lectures on "the boundary between science and technology in the AI era", "the value of stories that technology finds hard to replace", and "the importance of communication that avoids mistranslation in the AI era".

Small business owners and client companies supported by KB Financial also participated. The event used food from businesses taking part in KB Financial’s small restaurant support programme, "KB Maeum Store". It used products from KB Financial client companies for items needed to run the event, putting into practice the value of mutual growth with small businesses.

Yang, in a special lecture for group CEOs, stressed that the group should "use AI technology as a strategic weapon to accelerate the 'transition' of the business model and ways of working, and through 'expansion' into new markets and customers, all employees should be reborn as strategists and innovators to lead change". He then urged employees to lead change through confident execution under the belief that "all answers are with customers", and said the group "must repay customers with expertise and capability that matches trust, the essence of finance".