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Key Takeaways from the Seoul FinTech Week 2025 Conference

Norbert Gehrke

04 Oct 2025 — 5 min read

The Seoul FinTech Week 2025 Conference took place on Monday, September 29, 2025, and was live streamed via YouTube. We summarize our key takeaways, as well as some of the insights gathered from the individual sessions.

Top 10 Takeaways from Seoul FinTech Week 2025

AI is the Undisputed Core of Future Finance: The central theme of the conference, "FinTech Innovation Led by AI," was consistently reinforced. AI is no longer a niche technology but the fundamental driver of efficiency, personalization, and new business models across all financial sectors.
Data Sovereignty is Korea's Strategic Advantage: While Korea may lag in foundational AI model development, its unique strength lies in the vast, high-quality data held by its dominant domestic tech platforms (e.g., Naver, Kakao). This "data sovereignty" is a critical asset for developing competitive, localized AI financial services.
Seoul is Solidifying its Position as a Global FinTech Hub: The city has achieved its highest-ever ranking (8th globally in FinTech) through deliberate policy, investment in infrastructure like the Seoul FinTech Lab, and a focus on talent cultivation.
The Rise of "AI Agents" and "Agentic Enterprises": The vision for AI is moving beyond simple automation or generation. The future lies in autonomous AI agents that can perform complex, multi-step tasks, augmenting human employees and fundamentally changing how financial organizations operate.
Regulation is Shifting Towards "Responsible Innovation": Regulators like the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) are moving from a prohibitive stance to creating enabling frameworks. Through sandboxes, unified guidelines, and risk-based approaches, the goal is to foster innovation while managing new risks.
Hyper-Personalization is Blurring the Lines Between Finance and Daily Life: Companies like Naver Pay are leveraging AI and vast data ecosystems to integrate financial services seamlessly into users' everyday activities, from house-hunting with natural language to managing health as an "asset."
Stablecoins and Digital Assets are the Next Major Frontier: There is a strong consensus that stablecoins will be pivotal for the future of payments, remittances, and the digital economy. Governments across Asia are actively developing legal frameworks to support and regulate their issuance.
Cross-Border Collaboration is Essential but Challenging: The Asia FinTech Alliance (AFA) panel highlighted that fragmented regulations and the difficulty of finding trusted local partners are the biggest barriers to regional expansion. Alliances and government support are crucial to overcoming this.
Combating Fraud is a Unifying Priority: As finance becomes more digital and borderless, sophisticated AI-driven fraud has become a critical shared threat. Cross-border collaboration on fraud detection and prevention is a key area for immediate international cooperation.
Public-Private Partnership is the Engine of Growth: The success of the FinTech sector relies on a symbiotic relationship between government support (funding, deregulation, testbeds) and private sector innovation (startups, established financial institutions).

Summary of Conference Segments

1. Opening Ceremony & Congratulatory Remarks

The conference opened with remarks from key figures including the Vice Mayor of Seoul, the Governor of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), and political leaders. The central message was the celebration of Seoul's emergence as a top global FinTech hub, having reached a record 8th place in the international FinTech city index. Speakers emphasized the city's commitment to becoming a top-5 global financial center by fostering a dynamic digital finance ecosystem through initiatives like the Seoul FinTech Lab and the upcoming "Invest Seoul" foundation, which will attract global capital.

2. The 4th Pinnnovation Challenge Awards

This session honored promising FinTech startups, showcasing practical collaborations between innovators and established financial institutions.

Pinnnovation Award: Norispace was recognized for its AI-powered solution that detects document forgery in insurance claims.
Shinhan Innovation Award: Langcode won for its enterprise-grade generative AI platform designed to automate business management tasks.
Seoul Mayor's Award (Grand Prize): Switchwon received the top honor for its foreign exchange technology that enables real-time currency exchange and overseas stock investment services.

3. Keynote: "Daily Life and the Future of Finance to be Changed by AI" by Yoon Ho-young, CEO of KakaoBank

The KakaoBank CEO delivered a powerful keynote arguing that Korea has a unique strategic advantage in the AI era.

Data Sovereignty: Unlike most countries, Korea has strong domestic platforms in search, messaging, and e-commerce. The data within these platforms is a unique asset inaccessible to global AI giants, giving Korea a competitive edge.
Practical AI Application: KakaoBank leverages this data for superior credit scoring (especially for mid-to-low credit customers), phishing detection, and conversational banking interfaces.
Call for a Korean Stablecoin: He strongly advocated for a Won-based stablecoin to protect the domestic payment market and facilitate global remittances, leveraging Koreans' high digital literacy.
Key Actions for Korea: He urged the nation to establish clear data utilization policies and actively create "testbeds" for new technologies to accelerate innovation.

4. Session 1: AI & FinTech Policy - Domestic and Global Perspectives

This session explored the policy and regulatory landscape for AI in finance.

Financial Supervisory Service (FSS): Outlined its plan to create a unified AI guideline and a standardized risk management framework. They are supporting the industry through an AI platform for smaller firms and a regulatory sandbox for cloud-based AI services.
Seoul Research Institute: Explained Seoul's strategy of supporting FinTech and AI startups through dedicated hubs (Yeouido and Yangjae). The next step is to create "convergence policies" that foster collaboration between these two sectors, with a focus on providing real-world demonstration opportunities.
Korea Capital Market Institute: Compared the AI strategies of the US (private-sector led), China (government-driven), and the EU (regulation-focused). It concluded that Korea, with its limited resources, must pursue a "selection and concentration" strategy, focusing on specific strengths in the AI value chain and fostering strong public-private investment.

5. Session 2: Latest Technology Trends - AI Innovating Digital Finance

This session featured industry leaders showcasing cutting-edge AI applications.

Salesforce: Presented the evolution from simple automation to "Agentic AI" (digital labor). The vision is to create an "Agentic Enterprise" where AI agents autonomously handle complex tasks, assisting and augmenting human employees to boost productivity and allow them to focus on higher-value work.
Naver Pay: Demonstrated how it is integrating finance into everyday life by leveraging Naver's vast data ecosystem. Key innovations include an "AI House Finder" using natural language, using non-financial data for small business credit scoring, personalized asset management, and developing facial recognition payments. Their goal is to be the ultimate "connector" between users' lives and financial services.

6. Session 3: Global FinTech Roundtable with the Asia FinTech Alliance (AFA)

This session brought together leaders from FinTech associations across Asia to discuss regional trends, challenges, and opportunities for collaboration.

Country Presentations (Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand): Each country shared its unique status. Common themes included strong government support for AI, the dominance of digital payments, and the rise of digital assets. Notable points were Taiwan's hardware strength, Japan's focus on startup-bank collaboration, Singapore's role as a regional hub, Malaysia's lead in Islamic FinTech, and Thailand's promotion of virtual banking and digital assets.
Panel Discussion: The discussion identified fragmented regulations and finding trusted local partners as the primary obstacles to cross-border expansion in Asia. The AFA's role is to address this by sharing best practices, facilitating partnerships, and advocating for regulatory harmony. A consensus emerged that collaborating on cross-border fraud prevention is the most urgent and actionable priority for the alliance, as it is a shared threat that requires a united response.