Shinhan Bank Signs Digital Financial Services Agreement with Korea Microsoft

Establishment of Financial Innovation R&D Space 'Expace'
Collaboration on Digital Future Finance Research and Service Innovation
Benchmarking MS Innovation Program 'Garage'
Development of New Business Models Between Both Companies

At the 'Shinhan Bank-Microsoft Strategic Partnership for Financial Innovation' held on the 13th at the Korea Microsoft headquarters in Jongno-gu, Seoul, Lee Myung-gu, Vice President of Shinhan Bank Digital Group (left in the photo), and Lee Ji-eun, CEO of Korea Microsoft, pose for a commemorative photo. Photo by Lee Myung-gu

[Asia Economy Reporter Kangwook Cho] Shinhan Bank announced on the 13th that it has signed a strategic business agreement with Microsoft Korea for digital future finance research and service innovation.

Through this agreement, Shinhan Bank and Microsoft Korea will combine Microsoft's extensive global experience and digital technology with Shinhan Bank's financial innovation research and development (R&D) space, ‘Expace’.

‘Expace’ is a space where Shinhan Bank's digital department, fintech, startups, and innovative large companies collaborate both online and offline to develop and verify financial services.

Both companies will jointly promote Shinhan Bank's successful digital transformation (DT) through cooperation in ▲building a modern workspace and AI environment ▲transferring innovation methodology programs ▲expanding platform infrastructure.

First, the modern workspace environment within ‘Expace’ will be established as a continuously connected collaboration space, including both software and hardware. Microsoft’s collaboration platform ‘Teams’ will be used as the standard communication tool to enable fast and efficient communication among members with high security.

Along with this, large multi-touch tablets ‘Surface Hub’ and highly portable ‘Surface Pro’ devices will be deployed to enhance work productivity as well as facilitate free collaboration, meetings, and idea sharing. Additionally, the natural language processing model GPT-3 will be piloted in various financial services with plans for future expansion.

Efforts will also be made to transfer innovation methodology programs. Shinhan Bank will benchmark Microsoft’s internal innovation program ‘Garage’ to implement a Korean-style ‘Garage’ and regularly hold hackathons to discover diverse ideas and develop experimental applications.

In this process, Microsoft will connect with the global Garage to provide global financial service model research and support networking with promising startups. Through this, they plan to design minimum viable products (MVP), develop high-level solution architecture, and plan joint projects for new business initiatives.

Hybrid cloud infrastructure will also be expanded through platform cooperation. The IT infrastructure of the 5G MEC testbed within ‘Expace’ will be implemented based on Microsoft’s cloud platform ‘Azure’ to enhance safety and security in outputs and production processes.

Based on this, Azure services will be utilized in conducting innovation methodology programs, integrated into applications, and expected to achieve agile innovation while addressing internal compliance issues.

A Shinhan Bank official stated, “We believe that pursuing innovation alone as a bank and cooperating with partners who have experience and methodology in innovation is the right direction,” and added, “Through cooperation with Microsoft, a global leading ICT company, we hope to organize and operate ‘Expace’ as a space for researching and developing future financial services at a global level.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.