Development of Financial Services with Latest Technology by KB Financial Group’s Six Affiliates
Discovery and Joint Growth with Promising Startups
KB Financial Group has announced on the 8th that it is recruiting startups to participate in the ‘KB Open Innovation Program,’ which will create next-generation financial services with KB Financial’s affiliates using innovative ideas and technologies until the 16th.
The ‘KB Open Innovation Program’ is a startup nurturing program that aims for mutual growth by solving joint business tasks through collaboration between promising startups and each affiliate of KB Financial.
KB Financial seeks startups possessing technology suitable for creating new financial services and business models pursued by each affiliate. These selected startups will have the opportunity to collaborate with KB Financial affiliates and apply their technologies across various business fields.
As a result of running the ‘KB Open Innovation Program,’ collaborative projects with potential for practical application and commercial viability will be pursued as main businesses by each KB Financial affiliate.
This year, KB Financial has expanded the recruitment areas to include not only domestic businesses but also global businesses. Six affiliates, including KB Kookmin Bank, KB Securities, KB Insurance, KB Kookmin Card, KB Life Insurance, and KB Capital, are participating, seeking startups to work on a total of 11 projects (9 domestic, 2 global).
The recruitment projects include: the development of retirement pension killer content for promoting innovation in non-face-to-face channels (KB Kookmin Bank), establishing a response quality evaluation system for generative AI services (KB Securities), introducing an AI-based speech coaching solution for insurance agents (KB Insurance), analyzing the effectiveness of personalized marketing through platform customer behavior analysis (KB Kookmin Card), developing an automatic real estate price estimation model for major cities in Indonesia (KB Kookmin Bank), among others.
Selected startups will receive support funds (10 million won per project) necessary to verify actual commercialization, and access to the open innovation project room at the Gangnam Hub operated by the KB Innovation Hub. They will also have the opportunity to be selected for ‘KB Startups,’ KB Financial’s startup nurturing program.
A KB Financial representative stated, “We are awaiting the active participation of startups equipped with the execution ability and ideas to enhance competitiveness in AI and other cutting-edge technologies and create new, customer-centric financial services with KB Financial. We will continue playing the role of a partner who actively discovers and supports startups aspiring to become big tech and platform companies, creating a co-existing ecosystem.”
Since 2015, KB Financial has been running the ‘KB Startups’ program, the first startup nurturing program in the financial sector, supporting startups with high future growth potential. To date, 301 startups have been nurtured, with an accumulated investment amount of 226.7 billion won.