FSC Chairman Lee Eok-won answers lawmakers' questions at a plenary session of the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee in Yeouido, Seoul, on Wednesday. [Yonhap]
FSC Chairman Lee Eok-won answers lawmakers' questions at a plenary session of the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee in Yeouido, Seoul, on Wednesday. [Yonhap]

An AI education platform launched by the Financial Services Commission under the banner of an "AI great transformation" has attracted only three paying subscribers this year, lawmakers revealed Wednesday. Wide disparities in AI security budgets across major banks also drew fire at the same hearing, prompting FSC Chairman Lee Eok-won to promise a review of the platform and a firm easing of network-separation rules for financial firms that can demonstrate adequate security capabilities.

Lee Hae-min, a lawmaker of the Rebuilding Korea Party, disclosed the subscription figures at a plenary session of the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee on Wednesday. The platform — called "Everyone's Financial AI Learning Platform" — was announced by the FSC in December last year with a press release declaring that the agency would "lead the AI great transformation," and began operating in January. According to Lee, the platform has three paying subscribers and 209 free subscribers this year. Of the free subscribers, 138 signed up temporarily through a university student education program held in July.

Lee said the FSC had brought the poor performance on itself. A shortage of computing resources, including GPUs, forced the platform to double its usage fees, and the service does not appear in search results, limiting its accessibility. Lee said, "A policy that cannot secure computing resources is neither sustainable nor anything more than a one-off waste of budget," and called for "a full overhaul from the user's perspective, not the supplier's."

Lee also noted that the FSC is not a latecomer to AI policy. The agency has issued a series of guidelines — an AI operations guide in 2021, a development and utilization handbook in 2022, an AI security guideline in 2023, a consolidated guideline in January and a frontier AI response guide in July. Chairman Lee said he would "take another look at it."

Security budget disparities also drew fire. Financial firms worldwide allocate an average of 13 percent of their IT budgets to cybersecurity, but KB Kookmin Bank, Shinhan Bank, Woori Bank, Korea Investment & Securities and NH Investment Securities all fell short of that benchmark. The share of AI security within each firm's information-security budget ranged from 0.7 percent at Shinhan Bank to 30 percent at KB Kookmin Bank — a gap of more than 40 times. NongHyup Bank and Woori Bank had no AI-related security budget at all. Political Affairs Committee Chairman Yoo Dong-su added, "I cannot understand how the gap between financial firms can be this wide."

Lee said, "South Korea claimed to be protecting financial security while forcing citizens to install layer upon layer of security programs, and ended up earning the reputation of being the world's weakest link in financial security. Given that we built a security Galapagos in the past, we must not repeat the same mistake in the AI era."

Chairman Lee called the issue "an extremely important matter not only from a security standpoint but also in terms of each firm's own competitiveness," and said he would "make sure they are more alert to it." "Security now requires using AI to counter AI, and the biggest obstacle is network separation. For those that are prepared and have the capability, we will definitely lift the restrictions," he added.


psj@heraldcorp.com