Seen above is the Las Vegas Convention Center where the Consumer Electronics Show 2023 is taking place. Yonhap

By Lee Min-hyung

A group of ranking financial officials have flown to Las Vegas to attend the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) there amid the blurring boundaries between the finance and technology sectors.

Shinhan Financial Group Chairman Cho Yong-byoung was the first to arrive in the U.S. for the four-day tech fair. He left Tuesday with the firm's executives and some other working-level officials in charge of digital-related tasks for the firm and its key affiliates. They included Kim Myung-hee, chief digital officer of the group, and Shinhan Bank Vice President Lim Soo-han.

Shinhan Bank set up its independent booth there for the first time among Korea's commercial lenders. The bank unveiled its Cinnamon metaverse platform, in which users can manage various financial products by using Churros, the platform's cyber money. It will take more time for it to see wider use here or abroad, but the company expects the platform to generate huge marketing effects in the lead-up to its digital transformation. The lender said this is the first time in the world that a commercial bank has launched a metaverse platform converged with a banking system.

The banking group also shared its digital vision at last year's CES, during which it showcased an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered bank clerk.

Hana Financial Group Chairman Ham Young-joo also visited the U.S. city for the first time after taking office last March. A group of 20 young officials also accompanied him to catch up with the technological paradigm shift.

The Hana chief has underscored the urgent need to speed up the group's digital transformation in his New Year's address.

Both leaders and officials of the two major banking groups are expected to seek new business opportunities there by holding a series of meetings with their overseas partners. The tech exhibition is the largest of its kind, with the world's largest tech firms and even small startups from around the globe visiting the event venue to look for business ties.

"Leaders of major financial firms here realize the importance of preemptively expanding their footing in the trendy tech area amid the era of digital transformation under which any boundaries between finance and technology are blurring," an official from a financial firm said.

Insurance company officials also took a business trip to Las Vegas to find the next cash cow for the digital healthcare industry. Digital health was picked as one of the key concepts for this year's CES with the rise of IT-converged healthcare platforms.

Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance and KB Insurance sent some of their employees to the CES, in a bid to keep up with the latest healthcare business trends.