South Korea’s NH NongHyup Bank said Thursday it is collaborating with Samsung Electronics to accelerate digital transformation of its financial businesses.

One of the country‘s top commercial banks and the global tech behemoth signed a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday that will help NH NongHyup efficiently utilize key emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain and the metaverse.

Designing digital, yet consumer-friendly brick-and-mortar branches, developing financial services based on blockchain technology and joint research on new AI and metaverse platforms will be the key agendas of the latest partnership.

The partnership comes as NH NongHyup has been bolstering its digital services. It recently launched a virtual Dokdo branch, which customers can visit on its mobile app All One Bank and subscribe to financial products tied to the nation’s easternmost islets. It has been also expanding its list of mobile loan products.

NH NongHyup’s net profit for the first six months of the year gained 7.8 percent on-year to 856.3 billion won ($727.6 million).

“We have partnered with Samsung Electronics, a forerunner of digital technology, to materialize our goal of building a consumer-friendly, comprehensive digital platform, in line with our 60th anniversary,” NH NongHyup Bank CEO Kwon Joon-hak said.

“We hope to showcase some innovative digital services through the partnership and continue to make efforts to become an industry leader of digital finance,” he added.

By Jung Min-kyung (mkjung@heraldcorp.com)