Woori Bank will become the first Korean bank to introduce an artificial intelligence system that automatically renews maturing corporate loans by the end of this year. The bank aims to streamline operations through AI while redirecting staff to evaluate quality companies for productive financing.
According to financial industry sources on March 3, Woori Bank plans to select an external developer this month and complete the project in the fourth quarter to upgrade its overall loan process, including an automated corporate loan review system.
The initiative was launched to respond to changing financial conditions through AI transformation across the entire loan process. Woori Bank formed a task force team with external consultants in September last year to analyze current operations and discuss improvement measures.
The centerpiece of the project is the automated corporate loan renewal system. Based on internal Borrower Risk Ratings, AI will handle loan renewals that relationship managers at branches previously processed for all corporate clients. Until now, automated renewal systems existed only for individual business owners, but the bank aims to extend this to corporations for the first time in the banking sector through AI transformation in lending.
When AI automatically renews corporate loans using internal metrics and external data, companies can receive faster renewal reviews while banks can significantly reduce workloads. As AI replaces existing employee tasks, staff can be redeployed to evaluate new corporate loans or conduct deeper analysis. The bank plans to use this capacity to identify excellent companies and expand productive financing. Internal expectations are that this will strengthen Woori Bank's position as a leader in corporate finance.
"We expect branch workloads to decrease significantly through process improvements and operational efficiency," a Woori Bank official said. "This will help us establish a foundation for productive financial support."
AI will also be deployed for asset soundness and fraud prevention. Woori Bank plans to upgrade by year-end its system for blocking improper loans, which has been part of the automated corporate loan review system since late last year. The system analyzes patterns from past improper loans to filter out new loan applications with similar patterns during automated reviews. It also utilizes alternative data such as utility payments and social insurance premium auto-transfers.
Woori Bank has also launched "Deep Research," a generative AI-based system that automatically produces reports using internal data. The intelligent report-writing support system collects, integrates, and analyzes internal financial data based on employee requests for industry and company analysis, delivering expert-level draft reports in a short time. Deep Research dramatically reduces time spent gathering and organizing materials, allowing employees to focus on more creative and strategic decision-making.
At the group level, Woori Financial Group has set goals based on its "AX Master Plan" to create 344 AI use cases by next year—200 in banking and 144 in non-banking units—while establishing AI-based management systems and transforming business processes. Woori Financial recently nominated Ryu Jung-hye, a member of the National AI Strategy Committee and AI expert, as a new outside director candidate. She previously led AI and data-based service initiatives at major digital platform companies including Naver, NHN, and Kakao.
"Through restructuring our outside directors, we will further strengthen consumer protection governance and company-wide AI transformation, focusing on enhancing group competitiveness and executing productive financing to deliver results in shareholder value," a Woori Financial official said.