AI and blockchain are bringing about a new paradigm shift in the financial sector.

Hyundai Card and Hyundai Commercial announced on the 13th at 'IBM THINK 2019' held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, USA that they are collaborating with IBM to utilize cloud-based AI and blockchain technologies.
Since becoming the first financial company in Korea to introduce an AI-based chatbot for customer service in 2017, Hyundai Card has supported one million customers. Dubbed 'Hyundai Card Buddy,' the chatbot provides quick answers to frequently asked questions, freeing up employees to focus on more sophisticated customer service and helping to enhance the customer digital experience.

Built on IBM's enterprise artificial intelligence solution, Watson, 'Hyundai Card Buddy' was developed to continuously learn and evolve through interaction with users, leveraging Watson's natural language processing and machine learning technologies. This chatbot improves customer satisfaction and contributes to the efficiency of customer service operations by understanding the hidden intentions and meanings of the questioner and providing answers.

“It is nearly impossible to fully understand and remember the benefits and terms of financial products,” said Jeong Tae-young, Vice Chairman of Hyundai Card, Hyundai Capital, and Hyundai Commercial. “In this environment, customers expect a higher level of service, but the turnover rate and training costs for consultants are very high.”

He continued, “IBM Watson has become a very powerful tool for supporting our employees,” and explained, “It has also contributed to lowering the turnover rate of our consultants to less than 10%.”

Hyundai Commercial, a corporate finance company, is partnering with IBM to apply blockchain technology to transform its business model.

By building Hyundai Commercial's new supply chain finance ecosystem based on blockchain (open source Hyperledger Fabric), the time and cost of financial transactions from manufacturers within the network to customers across the distribution network are expected to be reduced.

This corporate finance platform will not only allow businesses to view all transactions occurring on the network at a glance, but also automate manual processes and share transaction data more securely and efficiently.

IBM Korea President Hwajin Jang said, “The Korean financial industry is rapidly adopting cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data analysis, blockchain, and cloud to improve the quality of customer experience and create new business opportunities, thereby developing digital-centric financial services.” He added, “Hyundai Card and Hyundai Commercial are establishing themselves as strong innovators in the industry by pioneering new technologies through various collaborations with IBM.”

oneIBM Watson solutions are currently used across a wide range of industries, including seven of the world's top ten automakers and eight of the world's top ten oil and energy companies.