The ‘FIN:NECT Challenge’, designed to discover business ideas in the financial and AI fields by region and support commercialization, has concluded regional preliminary rounds in five regions across the country. The Korea Fintech Support Center and Kakao Bank announced on the 10th that they have completed all regional preliminaries, including Gyeonggi, Incheon, Gangwon, Gyeongsang, Chungcheong, Honam, and Jeju, with the Seoul area preliminaries ending. The 12 teams that passed the regional preliminary round will advance to the integrated finals held at the Credit Guarantee Fund Gwangjin NEST on August 27. This competition, now in its 4th year, added a new ‘AI field’ to the existing financial field. Practical service planning and commercialization verification training is provided to participating teams, and support measures for idea advancement, such as overseas programs in San Francisco, USA, have also been expanded. A total of 431 teams, including high school students, college students, and prospective entrepreneurs, applied for this competition, recording an average competition rate of 8.8 to 1. The competition rate by field is 8.1 to 1 in the finance field and 9.3 to 1 in the AI ​​field, and 50 teams that passed the document screening were selected.