JB Financial Group Invests KRW 40 Billion in Upstage, Accelerating Financial AI Innovation
JB Financial Group announced on October 20 that three of its subsidiaries—Jeonbuk Bank, Kwangju Bank, and JB Woori Capital—had signed an investment agreement worth KRW 40 billion with artificial intelligence (AI) technology company Upstage in its Series C-2 funding round. Through the investment, JB Financial Group secured an approximately 2% stake in Upstage.
The three JB Financial Group subsidiaries led the first tranche of the round, getting it underway. Following this initial investment, Upstage plans to continue raising additional funds in the C-2 round.
The investment follows a memorandum of understanding (MOU) the two parties signed on September 14 for a strategic partnership in finance, AI technology, and business collaboration. The three JB Financial Group subsidiaries discussed identifying in-depth AI collaboration projects, including the joint development of AI agents for core financial work.
JB Financial Group said that, since the beginning of this year, it has been pursuing an AI transformation (AX) at the group level and driving productivity gains in areas such as IT development, compliance, and corporate lending processes.
JB Financial Group plans to work with Upstage on the joint development of AI agents tailored to the financial sector; training and staff exchanges to build AI capabilities among employees; and regional AI cooperation projects in partnership with local governments and universities. In particular, the group plans to first apply AI to time-consuming, repetitive work such as document processing and reviews, with the aim of changing not only the efficiency of individual tasks but also the way work is done.
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Kim Ki-hong, chairman of JB Financial Group, said, "This investment reflects our determination to ensure that AI collaboration goes beyond declarations and leads to tangible changes on the ground at our subsidiaries. We will use AI not merely as a tool to assist with work, but as a means of structurally transforming the way we work and our productivity, and build a successful AX case for a financial group."
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