Naver Pay Vice President Cho Jae-bak Says AI Will Reshape Finance, Infrastructure Must Advance

"AI Agents to Spread Across Finance"

"Financial Infrastructure Must Evolve in Step"

"South Korea Has Strong Competitiveness"

The era of artificial intelligence agents carrying out payments and investments on behalf of people is poised to begin in earnest, according to Cho Jae-bak, vice president of Naver Pay.

Speaking at the Financial Clearing Institute's 40th-anniversary Payment Insight Seminar at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry on October 23, Cho said users have traditionally logged into financial apps themselves to make transactions, but AI agents will increasingly do so instead. He added that the future customers of financial institutions, Naver Pay and the Financial Clearing Institute will be AI agents.

Cho cited investing through AI agents as a representative example. Large language model-based investment applications are already spreading overseas, and their advantage is that individuals can tailor investments more flexibly to their own preferences.

He also said AI agents will bring major changes to payments. In the future, AI agents will compare prices and product quality on behalf of consumers and complete purchases on the best available terms.

Cho said financial infrastructure must also evolve to match that shift. Systems will be needed to prevent problems that could arise when AI agents execute transactions.

Even if users delegate financial transactions to AI agents, the industry will need to determine how to manage transaction limits and how to verify whether an agent has actually been granted authority, he said. Building secure infrastructure that AI agents can use safely and reliably will be critical.

Cho also gave South Korea high marks for competitiveness in the AI agent era.

South Korea already has stronger financial infrastructure than many overseas markets in areas such as open banking, MyData, and financial product comparison and recommendation services, he said. While the country has yet to commercialize AI agent-based financial transactions, he said it could build one of the world's strongest infrastructures as the market expands.

Naver Pay is also focusing on building financial infrastructure for AI agents.

Cho said Naver Pay is preparing for an era in which agents will be able to check users' financial assets, search for needed products and services, make reservations, and complete payments. To that end, the company is currently conducting a proof of concept, or PoC, for an AI agent-based payment service with the Financial Clearing Institute.