Bank declares transformation into 'Agentic AI Bank'
AI agent platform 'NHAIS' to launch this year
135 billion won ($88.9 million) earmarked for AI data center
NH NongHyup Bank has declared a sweeping transformation into an "NH Agentic AI Bank," becoming the first financial institution in South Korea to do so. The bank aims to move beyond generative AI toward "agentic AI" — systems capable of autonomously understanding user intent and completing tasks on their own — to break through the limits of conventional financial services and lead a hyper-personalized banking future.
Bank President Kang Tae-young hosted the "NH Agentic AI Bank Vision Day" on Tuesday at the bank's headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul, before an audience of employees and partners from the AI ecosystem. In his vision speech, Kang said the era now demands that "AI go beyond simple product recommendations to fully understand and act on each customer's situation and context," and officially declared that "NH NongHyup Bank begins its full transformation into an Agentic AI Bank today, for a new future of finance."
The future banking vision Kang outlined is an "Agentic AI Bank that realizes the customer's wishes." He identified three strategic pillars to achieve it: platform, service and infrastructure.
Concretely, the bank plans to launch NHAIS — an AI platform that will allow every employee to build and deploy AI agents independently — by the second half of this year. By 2030, the bank intends to complete what it calls "AI full-banking," applying AI to every banking operation, from non-face-to-face transactions to credit screening. The bank also plans to strengthen its sustainable AI foundation through acquisitions of external AI companies, ecosystem partnerships and investment in AI data centers.
The bank also announced a specific roadmap to complete the acquisition and subsidiary integration of AI software firm AgileSoDA within this month.
"We will combine AgileSoDA's leading technology with NH NongHyup Bank's financial infrastructure to build an unrivaled AI financial ecosystem," Kang said. "Because the future of finance can only be realized on a stable infrastructure, we will boldly invest 135 billion won in an AI data center that will serve as our core hub, laying a customer-oriented foundation."
The event also featured the launch ceremony of the "AX Frontier" — a 77-member task force that will lead the bank's AI transformation on the ground — as well as the selection ceremony for the NH Open Business Hub's 2026 partner companies.
"The competitiveness of finance depends not on technology itself, but on how deeply we can connect with and act for our customers," Kang said. "We will more deeply understand customers' daily lives, expand the potential of our employees, and redefine the very nature of finance through innovation — setting a new standard for Korean finance as an Agentic AI Bank that realizes the customer's wishes."
won@heraldcorp.com
