Gaming company NCSoft and brokerage firm KB Securities announced on Wednesday that both companies would invest in December & Company, an asset management company, to develop fintech services run entirely by artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
Through the partnership, December & company would receive a 30 billion won ($25.9 million) investment each from KB Securities and NCSoft. The company would create a stock trading program using its AI engine ISSAC and an asset management platform Fint. The three companies agreed to form a joint venture through this project.
A spokesman from December & Company stated that December participated in the venture to obtain additional knowledge in financial technology. The company also aims to improve the competitiveness of its AI platform technology.
Expanding AI Technologies
Under the joint venture, the AI software would create an automated financial investment platform that manages inquiries about financial investments. The software would use NCSoft’s Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology along with KB Securities’ investment expertise and December’s financial data.
NCSoft, led by President Yoon Song-yee, continually invested in AI research activities which eventually resulted in NLP technology. Since 2011, the company grew from a game developer to an AI technology company and now employs 200 AI experts.
NCSoft’s research facility houses an AI center that studies technology for speech and vision and online games and an NLP center for language-based AI.
In 2016, NCSoft updated its own multiplayer online role-playing game called Blade & Soul. An AI character in the game could provide different reactions to situations and diverse players, almost like a human. Two years later, NCSoft also introduced Paige, a baseball news platform that utilizes AI tech in the same year. The AI could deal with news, answer questions, and perform analysis on a baseball player’s performance.
Chung In-young, December & Company CEO, stated that the company would develop fintech services that offer lifetime benefits to consumers using big data and AI.
Meanwhile, KB Securities seeks to partner with other fintech companies to broaden its business horizons.
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