China’s financial sector, from banks to brokerages, is rapidly incorporating DeepSeek, the nation’s champion in AI, for customer service, data analysis, and email sorting. Dozens of firms have committed to implementing DeepSeek or specific applications of the AI large language model since January, when the Hangzhou-based app developer emerged as China’s low-cost alternative to Western competitors such as ChatGPT.
State-owned giants Postal Savings Bank and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), as well as regional lenders Bank of Jiangsu, Bank of Nanjing, Haain Rural Commercial Bank, and Bank of Beijing, were among the Chinese banking industry’s first to adopt DeepSeek.
Brokerages including Sinolink Securities, Industrial Securities, and GF Securities quickly followed suit. Ping An Group and New China Life insurers, as well as more than 10 asset managers including Fullgoal and China Universal, have also adopted DeepSeek.
According to a Bank of China Research Institute report, the financial sector has embraced DeepSeek’s promise of high performance and efficient training at costs below its Western peers. State media recently broadcast footage of Chinese President Xi Jinping shaking hands with DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng, signaling official support for an AI company whose Chinese clients outside financial circles include smartphone maker Oppo, carmaker BYD, and the Baidu search engine.
Customer chatbots running on DeepSeek are the most common financial sector applications. Postal Savings Bank’s mobile app, Xiaoyou Assistant, answers account holder questions and Haain Bank’s chatbot specializes in marketing queries. ICBC uses DeepSeek for wealth management tasks and financial data analysis. Bank of Beijing uses the app for data analysis through a partnership with Chinese IT conglomerate Huawei.
Bank of Jiangsu says the app is powering “contract quality inspection and automatic reconciliation evaluations” as well as “the mining and analysis of massive amounts of financial data.” In addition, DeepSeek helps the bank sort and respond to thousands of emails received daily. Sinolink had been exploring AI for data analysis and customer service for years before DeepSeek’s rollout, the firm noted in a press release. Already, “the project has achieved positive results, and the company will optimize the DeepSeek model in the future to achieve higher business goals,” including “risk control.”
