[THE INVESTOR] Woori Bank has launched an artificial intelligence-based financial adviser, or “robo adviser,” as well as robots built for customer assistance at local branches. 

The nation’s fourth-largest commercial bank announced on May 24 the AI-based program “Woori Robo-Alpha” will reach out to customers to offer asset management portfolios “tailored to their investment propensity,” starting May 24. Woori Robo-Alpha also suggests users balance investment portfolio through social networking tools, including WibeeTalk run by the banking institution.

The bank is also expected to introduce the motionless robots featuring voice-recognition functions to branches in Seoul’s Myeong-dong and Yonsei University areas, as well as its head branch in Jung-gu, starting May 25. 

The robots, run on Woori Robo-Alpha, will advise customers about the daily stock market quotations and customized investment portfolios, the bank explained. 

The beta version of the robo adviser, launched in March 2016, has averaged 4.52 percent of yearly rate of return in a test by the Financial Services Commission in April, according to the bank. 

“A dawn of new asset management platform nears with Woori Robo-Alpha,” said President of Woori Bank Lee Kwang-goo in a release on May 24. “Robo advisers will help publicize asset management services.”

This came about six months after. Shinhan Bank, the nation‘s largest, employed the first AI-run financial service, dubbed “MFolio,” in South Korea in November 2016.

By Son Ji-hyoung/The Korea Herald (consnow@heraldcorp.com)