Bank declares transformation into 'Agentic AI Bank'; plans to acquire AI firm AgileSoDA this month, launch AI agent platform NHAIS in second half of year, and invest 135 billion won ($87.3 million) in AI data center
NH NongHyup Bank has declared a sweeping transformation into an "NH Agentic AI Bank," becoming the first institution in South Korea's financial sector to make such a move. The bank aims to move beyond generative AI toward "agentic AI" — systems capable of independently understanding user intent and completing tasks autonomously — 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. Delivering a vision speech via hologram, 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 formally announced that "NH NongHyup Bank begins its great transformation into an Agentic AI Bank today."
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 agent platform that lets every employee build and deploy AI agents directly — by the second half of this year. Kang expressed the bank's determination to complete "AI full-banking" by 2030, 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 Tuesday a concrete roadmap to complete the acquisition of AI software specialist AgileSoDA and incorporate it as a subsidiary this month. AgileSoDA first connected with NH NongHyup Bank in 2019 when it was selected for the bank's open-innovation program. The company is a high-performance AI solutions firm with expertise in building financial-institution-tailored AI agents and a research staff of more than 80.
"We will merge 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 ($87.3 million) in an AI data center that will serve as our core hub, laying a customer-oriented foundation."
The bank also said it intends to lead in consumer protection and inclusive finance through agentic AI. A "consumer protection agent" will serve as a shield against financial fraud such as voice phishing, while a "chat agent" will deliver a hyper-personalized experience in which all financial transactions take place within a single conversation window. Internally, the bank will build a "one employee, one agent" framework to help staff focus on high-value, innovative work.
Tuesday's event also featured the launch ceremony for the "AX Frontier" — a 77-member execution unit that will drive the AI transformation on the ground — and the selection ceremony for NH Open Business Hub's 2026 partner companies. NH NongHyup Bank has invested a cumulative 90.6 billion won in the startup ecosystem over seven years since 2019, and this year it is partnering with 18 innovative companies to expand its push into financial AI. The AX Frontier, which will anchor the bank's human-capital transformation, will build AI development capabilities through intensive training and mission assignments, taking on a vanguard role in driving organizational change.
"The competitiveness of finance lies not in technology itself, but in how deeply we can connect with and act for our customers," Kang said. "We will deepen our understanding of 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."
Meanwhile, NH NongHyup Bank is pursuing investment and financial support for an AI data center construction project selected as the second mega-project under the National Growth Fund's "Sovereign AI Ecosystem Expansion Project." The initiative aims to develop and operate AI infrastructure entirely through domestic companies, independent of global big-tech firms, with a goal of localizing core equipment.
won@heraldcorp.com
