[Economic Essay Contest] Asymmetric realities, divergent solutions: Comparing AI governance in Korean and Mexican financial inclusion

The financial sector is facing a structural overhaul driven by artificial intelligence (AI). Pioneering institutions like Woori Bank have placed AI Transformation (AX) at the center of their immediate corporate strategies, overhauling customer interactions, risk modeling and systemic defense. Yet, viewed through the lens of economic policy, this shift presents an immediate conflict. The very infrastructure capable of compressing information asymmetries and erasing transaction costs can easily automate social exclusion if built without tight governance. Machine learning models feed on historical data. If those records carry legacy biases, algorithms end up institutionalizing past inequalities at a speed no human bureaucracy could match. Progress in banking cannot be measured simply by margin expansion; it requires looking at how these models adapt to clashing socioeconomic realities — specifically contrasting hyperdigitalized societies like Korea with credit-starved emerging economies like Mexico. In Korea’s hyperdigitalized environment, inclusion is no longer about opening an accoun