Artificial intelligence (AI) is a torch for the financial services sector in navigating a foggy future. Not only to maximize customer service, AI-integrated financial services have proven to be better equipped to deal with potentialfraud and misuse of customer data. Adaptive regulations are needed as a framework for action, not only to crack down on criminals, but also to proactively seek prevention.
The urgency was comprehensively conveyed in the presentation of the first day seminar panelists of the 3rd OJK International Research Forum 2025 held at the Royal Ambarrukmo Hotel, Yogyakarta, Monday (6/10/2025). Acting as the host, the Financial Services Authority (OJK) carries the umbrella theme"Advancing Financial Resilience in a Disrupted Global Landscape" for this year's OJK IRF.
The third annual forum, attended by 350 on-site participants and 100 online participants, noted AI as one of two major disruptive factors that will change the face of the financial services sector in the future. The second factor, after AI, is none other than geopolitical tensions that have altered supply chain flows, seeded uncertainty, and required governments to act more decisively, albeit cautiously.
OJK Board Chairman Mahendra Siregar acknowledged that in the midst of global disruption, financial services regulators face challenges that are not easy to overcome. In his remarks, Mahendra stated that the role of regulators will change significantly in a short time, given that the development of AI, blockchain, big data, and machine learning is still in its early stages.
"In the past, regulators anticipated and were ahead of changes. Now, technology demands that regulators see developments as dynamics. Regulators should not stifle creativity, but instead provide an ecosystem for further development and anticipate existing risks," Mahendra said.
In this situation, Mahendra emphasized that digital resilience should be interpreted as the ability to welcome opportunities and possibilities, while still ensuring its regulation and control. The availability of full space for OJK to control it, according to Mahendra, is mandated by Law Number 4 of 2023 concerning Financial Sector Development and Strengthening (P2SK Law), which is currently being updated.
"Not only anticipating changes in information technology, the P2SK Law has given OJK a full mandate to develop regulations, policies, supervision, and consumer protection throughout the financial services industry. Financial regulators from other countries often praise, what Indonesia has done has not even been thought of in their countries," he said.
More personalized service
With 1.8 billion users worldwide willing to spend up to USD 12.1 billion on AI assistance subscriptions, the financial services sector is increasingly realizing that something has changed and they must prepare themselves to deal with it.
Managing Director & Partner of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Tushar Agarwal revealed that BCG's latest research shows that the mastery and utilization of AI models are increasingly becoming variables that determine the valuation of financial services companies.
"The business world is transforming with AI. Among investors, discussions about AI increased from 14% in 2023 to 35% in 2024. This means that if I talk about AI, my company is getting more attention from investors. The usage of generated AI is projected to increase by 75% by 2027, with the market value reaching USD 900 billion by 2030," Agarwal explained.
With exponential growth in implementation, AI has increased productivity in banking companies by 10-40%, especially in scoring, pricing, service personalization, customer data collection, client simulation, and investment program recommendations to rotate customer funds.
As a result, human resources in the banking sector are getting shaken up, with simulations showing that more than 1,000 hours of financial sector operations in the near future will have to be allocated to competency development and increasing the median of AI-experienced employees.
For example, the competence of 20% of employees who are categorically highly-skilled in operating AI must be hobbled to help 80% of employees who are unskilled or just learning and adapting to AI in a very short time.
Like two sides of a coin, Agarwal also highlighted that the personalization of financial services by AI also presents security threats that are also personal in nature. There are at least three major threats facing the financial services sector: infrastructure risk, data risk, and customer trust risk.
"The biggest concern of bank customers today is if AI accidentally leaks my data to other customers. In a number of countries, including Indonesia, banks are still preparing to anticipate if video call techniques for account opening confirmation are faked by using deepfake faces and voices," he said.
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In that situation, Agarwal said the Indonesian government's priorities of expanding financial inclusion, accelerating digital payments, and building bank customers' trust in AI are appropriate, given the uneven level of financial literacy and digital literacy in the society.
He added that with a diverse society in terms of ethnicity and socio-economic strata, Indonesia can learn from the best practices of a number of countries in advancing financial inclusion with the help of AI.
In Colombia, Fundacion Capital developed the LISTA app and virtual assistant "Con-Hector" to help rural communities obtain micro-enterprise credit facilities and conduct scalable financial planning based on monthly income data, medium-term plans, and long-term investment schemes.
In India, the collaboration between OpenAI and the Indian government in creating the Bashini Chat Bot Project integrates AI for financial education programs in 22 languages and dialects in India based on a unified database. Meanwhile, in the UK, the UK Financial Conduct Authority is working with NVIDIA to develop AI to identify and block fund transfers to accounts that indicate fraud or scam.
"The key is collaboration. No government can do it alone. Every stakeholder has an integral role to play in developing AI to benefit financial services. The Call to Action to secure digital financial transactions should also reach the ASEAN level, as cross-border payment opportunities open up in the Southeast Asian region," concluded Agarwal.
Incentives will encourage
The various risks of AI integration as a provision for the financial services sector should not make service players retreat regularly, but be challenged to open opportunities for preventive synergies and learn from mistakes. Senior Researcher of the Korea Institute of Finance Lee Sangche revealed that South Korea was able to double the security protection of financial services because it learned from various fraud cases experienced by customers.
Lee explained that the South Korean Police currently identified at least 37 kinds offraud crime tactics, 6 of which have used AI, ranging from automated personalized messaging, deepfake impersonation of bank executives, crypto scams for project forgery, to account takeover with artificial identities created from profiling data.
"During January-July 2025, the South Korean Police received 16,561 complaints of fraud cases with losses reaching KRW 79.92 billion. Of this data, 7,080 commercial bank accounts and 9,859 digital bank accounts have been exposed to potential scams," Lee said.
This has increased over time due to traditional detection that cannot adapt to evolving tactics, slow manual tracking, and complex fraud schemes that are difficult to understand. In addition, weak identity verification is easily exploited.
At a time when infrastructure limitations are unable to cope with the sophisticated technology of fraudsters, Lee offers real-time data integration and analysis as a solution. The key is to adopt AI to predict fraud patterns and make real-time analysis.
"AI is not only used to detect fraud, but to protect customers preventively with strategic data collection and risk mitigation. Banks can use AI to create personalized real-time alerts that monitor suspicious activity and alert customers, so that they remain vigilant before transacting," he said.
Not only that, the response between government agencies needs to be proactive and responsive through strengthening investigations. The government should focus on developing AI platforms to prevent fraud, blocking suspicious apps, preventing the opening of accounts with fake identities, and legislating no-fault liability to make banks more accountable.
"Covering all fraud gaps with AI is almost impossible. Therefore, the current governments of various countries, including South Korea, are encouraging the financial sector to invest in AI development and provide a number of incentives, while developing laws governing the reimbursement of fraud victims' funds," he said.
