NextFin news, On November 9, 2025, Taiwanese financial holding giants Fubon Financial Holdings and CTBC Financial Holdings officially revealed the establishment of dedicated AI teams aimed at spearheading an aggressive digital finance transformation across their subsidiaries. This initiative, reported from Taipei, arises amid rapid advancements in generative artificial intelligence technologies, which are increasingly reshaping financial services worldwide.
Specifically, Fubon Financial formed a "Generative AI Application Promotion Team" in July 2025, comprising core members—at least six personnel—from each of its five key subsidiaries, including life insurance, banking, property insurance, securities, and asset management. This multi-disciplinary team is currently driving nearly 20 AI-powered projects focused on employee virtual assistants, workflow automation, and client service enhancement. Notably, Fubon internally developed and deployed a proprietary "knowledge retrieval engine," integrating subsidiary regulatory documents and product terms with AI to support frontline personnel in rapid information retrieval, ensuring data security and access control.
Meanwhile, CTBC Financial established a Digital Technology Department tasked with evaluating and consolidating AI initiatives, employing comparative international benchmarking and feasibility analysis to determine AI project prioritization. With a combined team size of approximately 300 to 400 AI and data analytics specialists across its banking and fintech operations, CTBC is actively preparing to launch an AI-powered credit card assistant service by mid-2026. This service emphasizes personalized data-driven insights by analyzing users' card portfolios and consumption behavior, illustrating a bespoke AI application to improve customer experience and engagement.
The impetus for these moves stems from a May 2025 survey by Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission, revealing that among 383 surveyed financial institutions and related entities, roughly one-third had adopted AI technologies—primarily banks, followed by life and non-life insurers. Moreover, 47% of these institutions plan to expand AI use, particularly in administrative tasks, intelligent customer support, and anti-financial crime efforts.
Fubon and CTBC's active recruitment efforts for cross-disciplinary talent who combine financial expertise with commercial analytics, process design, and AI technology underscore a talent-driven strategy to sustain innovation momentum. This aligns with broader industry trends where financial groups seek multi-domain experts capable of navigating technology-business integration complexities.
Analyzing the causes, this digital transformation surge is propelled by the convergence of explosive generative AI capabilities, growing customer demand for seamless digital experiences, and mounting pressure for operational efficiency in a competitive financial marketplace. The integration of generative AI, such as large language models, allows financial groups to unlock vast internal data resources, automate routine workflows, and deliver hyper-personalized advisory services, thus enhancing both cost-effectiveness and customer satisfaction.
The impacts are significant. Internally, AI adoption streamlines knowledge management, reduces manual processing errors, and accelerates decision-making. Externally, customers benefit from intelligent virtual assistants capable of delivering tailored financial recommendations rapidly. Furthermore, these efforts signal to regulators a proactive stance on technology adoption and risk control, which may influence favorable oversight and policy support. For instance, the focus on security, governance, and permission management in Fubon's AI tools addresses critical operational risks associated with data privacy and fraud.
Globally, this trend mirrors similar transformations in major financial hubs, where AI investment is becoming a strategic imperative. For example, data from leading international surveys indicate an intensification in AI-related talent demand, with organizations shifting from pilot projects to enterprise-wide AI operating models supported by central governance frameworks. Such structured adoption enhances scalability, risk mitigation, and ROI realization from AI initiatives.
Looking forward, the establishment of specialized AI teams in financial holding companies is expected to deepen the integration of AI into diverse financial products and services, heralding new business models such as AI-enhanced credit underwriting, dynamic risk assessment, and real-time client engagement platforms. This transformation may also drive increased M&A activity aimed at acquiring AI capabilities and foster strategic partnerships with technology firms to accelerate innovation cycles.
In conclusion, Taiwan's major financial groups exemplify a strategic blueprint for leveraging AI in digital finance transformation by assembling dedicated, cross-functional teams and prioritizing practical AI applications. This approach enhances competitive positioning in a digitized financial ecosystem shaped by technological advances and evolving client expectations under the administration of President Donald Trump, who inaugurated his second term in January 2025, continuing to influence global trade and technology policies impacting the financial sector.
According to the authoritative report published by United Daily News on November 9, 2025, these coordinated AI efforts by financial holding companies represent a proactive response to the sweeping digital finance wave, positioning them to better serve customers, optimize operations, and comply with emerging fintech regulations.
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