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KakaoBank on Monday launched a range of financial services for international residents in Korea, joining local lenders in the race to attract customers from the country's growing foreign population. The new offering from the internet-only lender includes checking accounts, debit cards, overseas remittances and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered multilingual support. "Even though banking has become much more convenient for domestic customers, foreign residents still face the kind of inconvenience we experienced in the past, when we had to visit bank branches just to open an account," Bae Jung-ho, head of KakaoBank's Foreign Customer Camp, said during a press conference in Seoul. "By providing foreign residents with the same app that our 28 million customers already use, we were able to launch more than 50 services at once," he added. KakaoBank's Foreign Resident Account is available to residents aged 19 or older who have an accepted form of identification and a mobile phone registered in their name. Applicants can open an account through a mobile chatbot in about five minutes, the bank

A civic group filed a complaint against Kakao with the privacy watchdog on Monday, alleging that the tech giant's corporate advertising service uses personal data to target users without their consent. The Seoul YMCA said it urged the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) to investigate KakaoTalk’s Brand Message service and impose strict sanctions if violations are confirmed. The group said Kakao replaced its previous channel-based advertising service, which limited promotional messages to users who had added a business’s KakaoTalk channel, with Brand Message, which allows businesses to send ads without requiring users to follow their channels. It alleged that Kakao matches phone numbers provided by advertisers with its own user database to identify ad recipients, even though users had provided their numbers for basic messaging functions, not to receive third-party advertising. “The key alleged violations involve the unauthorized use of personal information and infringement of users’ rights,” the group said. “Although users agreed to provide their phone numbers for

Developing industrial artificial intelligence (AI) requires "world AI" capable of understanding the physical world, and Korea has an increasingly important role to play in this field, according to Yann LeCun, widely regarded as one of the four leading figures in the global AI academia. LeCun and a number of other leading experts shared their views during the Global AI Leaders Seoul Dialogue, an event organized ahead of the fifth International Industrial AI Conference, scheduled for Tuesday in Tokyo. LeCun is a leading AI scientist, a recipient of the 2018 Turing Award, founder of AMI Labs and former chief AI scientist and vice president at Meta. He is known for pioneering convolutional neural networks, which revolutionized image recognition. He also serves as chief science adviser to Project Tapestry, an AI Alliance-led initiative to develop a large-scale AI model through federated learning, which allows AI models to learn from data stored across different countries or companies without requiring the data to be transferred to a central server. Christopher Nguyen, CEO of Aitomatic and chi

Korean budget airline Air Premia has captured more than 20 percent of passenger traffic carried by domestic carriers on the Incheon–Los Angeles route, marking four years of service on its flagship transpacific corridor. The airline said Monday that it transported 759,277 passengers on the route from its launch on Oct. 29, 2022, through September, recording an average share of 15.8 percent among Korean carriers over the period. Its share rose steadily from 12.9 percent in its first year to 14 percent in its second and 15.3 percent in its third, before reaching 20.8 percent in its fourth year. International demand has also grown, with passengers holding foreign nationalities accounting for 44.8 percent of total travelers over the four-year period. Their share climbed from 40.2 percent in the first year to 41.1 percent in the second and 47.2 percent in the third, reaching 49.6 percent in the fourth year. To mark the anniversary, Air Premia is offering promotional fares across five U.S. routes: Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Honolulu. Round-trip fares on the Los

Hyosung Chemical, a major Korean producer of advanced industrial polymers, is pushing its high-performance plastics into the European market. The company is targeting automakers and robotics manufacturers with specialized materials engineered for exceptional chemical resistance and durability under friction. The Korean chemical maker is participating in Fakuma 2026, an international plastics processing trade fair running from Monday through Oct. 16 in Friedrichshafen, Germany, where it is presenting its POKETONE material and applications across several industries. POKETONE is engineered to resist impact, abrasion and chemical exposure while absorbing little moisture, helping components maintain their shape and dimensions, the company said. Its strength, wear resistance and flame-retardant properties can also be tailored to specific applications, making it suitable for a range of industrial uses. Hyosung Chemical is highlighting automotive connectors, gears, drive components and medical parts under the exhibition theme “Automotive, Robotics, Medical.” The material is also finding poten

Korean drugmaker HLB has resubmitted its application for U.S. approval of a combination therapy for advanced liver cancer, renewing its push to bring the target treatment to market after addressing regulatory concerns raised earlier this year. The Korean biopharmaceutical company said Monday that its U.S. subsidiary, Elevar Therapeutics, and Chinese partner Hengrui Pharma submitted the application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday, seeking approval of rivoceranib in combination with camrelizumab as a first-line treatment for liver cancer. The resubmission follows an FDA complete response letter issued in July regarding an application Elevar filed in January, prompting the companies to work with regulators to address the agency’s concerns. HLB said inspections of the manufacturing facilities have recently been completed, allowing the companies to submit the application again. The filing is based on CARES-310, a global Phase 3 clinical trial involving patients with unresectable or metastatic liver cancer. In the trial’s final analysis, the combination treatment ac

Korean employers are no longer just asking job candidates if they understand artificial intelligence (AI). Instead, they are requiring hands-on expertise with specific platforms — and Claude is leading the surge in recruitment demand. According to data released Monday by JobKorea, a human resources technology platform operated by Worksphere, recruitment postings mentioning generative AI tools like Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini jumped 170 percent in the third quarter compared to the same period last year. Among individual tools, Claude recorded the sharpest increase, with mentions climbing 770 percent, followed by Google’s Gemini at 500 percent, ChatGPT at 165 percent, Microsoft Copilot at 96 percent and Midjourney at 46 percent. Claude’s share of postings that named specific AI tools jumped from 17 percent last year to 55 percent this year, narrowing the gap with ChatGPT, whose share remained around 70 percent over the same period, according to JobKorea. Demand also grew for skills related to how AI is applied, with mentions of generative AI, prompt engineering, AI agents and vibe cod

Naver Map, Korea’s most widely used online map service, will offer real-time, step-by-step voice navigation through artificial intelligence (AI)-powered smart glasses, becoming the first Korean map service to do so, its operator, Naver, said Monday. The feature is available first on Meta’s Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta glasses, according to the internet portal operator. It will also support “intelligent eyewear” being jointly developed by Google and Samsung Electronics, which is set for release later this year. Users can receive voice directions to their destination without repeatedly checking their smartphone screens. The glasses also tell them which way to turn and whether stairs or escalators lie ahead. The service will first be available on Android phones, with iPhone support to follow. Naver Map has also introduced voice commands designed for the glasses. Users can ask questions such as “When will I arrive?” or “Find a convenience store nearby” while walking and get answers right away. On the Google-Samsung glasses, users will also be able to launch Naver Map and star

Gaon Cable, an affiliate of LS Group, will build production lines for nuclear power plant cables at its U.S. plant in North Carolina, aiming to get ahead in a market expected to grow as the country expands nuclear power, the company said Monday. The Korean cable maker said its U.S. unit, LS Cable & System U.S.A., will install the equipment at its plant in Tarboro, North Carolina. The move is intended to build a local supply system ahead of the expected expansion of the U.S. market for large nuclear plants and small modular reactors (SMRs), smaller reactors that can be factory-built and installed in modules. The plant already produces overhead power lines for the U.S. grid. Adding nuclear cables will widen the range of products it makes locally. The company said the U.S. supply chain for nuclear plant equipment, including cables, remains thin because few new reactors have been built in the country for decades. Interest in new reactors has returned as electricity demand rises with the growing number of artificial intelligence data centers and as energy security becomes a priority. A single

SK Group will launch a two-year, full-time, non-degree program for aspiring developers and early-career innovators focused on using artificial intelligence (AI) to solve real-world problems, the conglomerate said Monday. Participants in the initiative will receive a monthly stipend of 3 million won (approximately $2,200) to support their intensive training and practical application projects. The program, SK AIGEN, combines “AI” and “generation.” It is open to people aged 19 to 34 and will start in March 2027 with about 50 participants. Participants will receive the monthly stipend for two years, along with training, mentoring and workspace. The program does not guarantee a job at SK or grant a degree, and participants have no obligations after completing it. In the first year, participants will plan and carry out individual or team projects that use AI to tackle problems faced by individuals, companies and society. In the second year, they will gain hands-on experience in fields tied to their own career or project plans, with SK connecting them to mentors and experts. SK said this

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won on Monday is said to be challenging the court's property division in his ongoing suit with his former wife, which set the wife's share at 33 percent of their shared property subject to division. The SK chairman raised the issue in a document submitted to the Supreme Court earlier in the day, as part of his appeal filed in August against the Seoul High Court's decision ordering him to pay 944 billion won ($707.8 million) in property division to his former wife Roh Soh-yeong, the daughter of late former President Roh Tae-woo. The appellate court issued the ruling in its second trial after the Supreme Court sent its previous ruling back for retrial a year earlier, determining that the former president's alleged 30 billion-won slush fund given to SK Group should not be recognized as the daughter's contribution to the marriage because it would have been illegal funds, even if it existed. In the document Chey's side submitted to the Supreme Court as part of his appeal, the SK Group chairman reportedly disputed the legality of the appellate court's latest decisio

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