Naver Pay Declares Shift to AI, Web3-Based Global Fintech Platform

Naver Pay held 'Npay Media Day 2025' to commemorate its 10th anniversary, announcing an ambitious mid-to-long-term vision to leap beyond being a leader in the domestic fintech market to become a 'global top-tier fintech platform' over the next 10 years. CEO Park Sang-jin presented a blueprint for future digital finance, revealing Naver Pay's innovative direction. Naver Pay's core strategy is to expand its online payment leadership into offline. At the heart of this is 'CONNECT,' an offline payment terminal scheduled for release within this year. With 85% of Koreans aged 20-60 having already experienced Naver Pay, and a strong user base built on 328 trillion won in cumulative payments over the past decade, CONNECT will support all payment methods, from cash and cards to QR, MST, NFC, and even 'FaceSign' based on facial recognition. Businesses will be able to easily connect by simply upgrading their existing system software, and will receive additional services like customer reviews and coupons, thereby revolutionizing payment convenience. As a leader in future digital finance, Naver Pay announced its ambition to actively pursue a 'Korean won stablecoin' business, becoming a key medium for connecting users across borders. It also plans to accelerate the utilization of Web3 technologies, having already showcased successful cases such as NFT ticketing services, and intends to expand related services through partnerships. Based on a vast 13 billion payment transactions annually, Naver Pay announced its evolution into an 'AI Financial Agent' platform. Key AI services include the industry's first 'AI Home Finder,' which recommends real estate listings that meet specific conditions using natural language via LLMs (Large Language Models), and 'Money Briefing,' which provides customized updates on users' financial asset fluctuations and economic indicator changes. These are expected to elevate personalized financial experiences. The performance of the innovative alternative credit scoring model, 'Npay Score,' is also impressive. 30% of users of the loan comparison service received interest rate and limit benefits through this score, showing remarkable results with an average approval rate increase of 20 percentage points and a default rate decrease of 1.4 percentage points. This model, which utilizes 30,000 items and 73 million pseudonymously combined data points, will expand its influence by being applied to Saittdol loans, a mid-interest loan product, in cooperation with Seoul Guarantee Insurance in July. In terms of security, the advanced Fraud Detection System (FDS), refined over the past 10 years, is expected to block fraudulent payments totaling 3 trillion won this year. Furthermore, the 'non-stop payment' service, which enables seamless payments even during bank inspection hours, reliably processed 120 billion won worth of payments last year, increasing trustworthiness. Vice President Cho Jae-bak emphasized Naver Pay's role as "the most user-centric and value-neutral platform" that contributes to solving social problems such as aging and financial information asymmetry. Naver Pay announced its ambitious goal to launch an integrated asset management service next year, encompassing everything from financial assets to health assets, and to become a hub that presents the optimal balance between financial and health assets through collaboration with Naver Healthcare Research Institute. This represents Naver Pay's commitment to contributing to the overall improvement of users' quality of life.