Hana Financial develops finance-specialized AI foundation model

Hana Financial Group is accelerating its push to embed generative AI in-house by developing a finance-specialized AI foundation model. The group plans to deploy the model across corporate lending, internal controls and customer support, with an eventual expansion into AI-powered search services for customers.

Hana Financial TI announced that Hana Financial Convergence Technology Institute, an in-house independent company, jointly developed the finance-specialized AI foundation model with AI firm Saltlux. Saltlux was the first AI company to list on Kosdaq and has developed its own large language model, Luxia.

An AI foundation model is a base model pre-trained on large-scale data that can be applied across a wide range of tasks. The new model was trained around functions with high practical value in financial settings, including financial document comprehension, business knowledge retrieval, question-and-answer processing and document summarization.

The development drew on Saltlux's large language model Luxia. Hana Financial Convergence Technology Institute contributed domain expertise in financial operations, while Saltlux provided AI model development capabilities, together producing a generative AI model optimized for the financial environment.

The model was designed to deliver strong performance with fewer infrastructure resources than conventional general-purpose generative AI models. That is expected to lower the cost of running AI services while enabling finance-specific capabilities.

Hana Financial Convergence Technology Institute plans to deploy the model first in key group operations — corporate lending, internal controls and customer support — to improve efficiency and productivity. It also intends to extend the model to AI search services, making it easier for customers to find the financial information they need accurately and quickly.

"We plan to apply the finance-specialized AI foundation model to the group's core operations and continue to enhance it," said Lee Hae, head of Hana Financial Convergence Technology Institute. "We will expand AI services that deliver real value to both employees on the ground and our customers."