First Community Corp

RISK MANAGEMENT 32 AI Foundation » Investments made in: ▪ Fraud & Financial Crimes ▪ Cybersecurity ▪ Operations & Productivity ▪ Compliance ▪ Customer Experience Scalability to allow our existing workforce to serve a larger customer base both in size and geography through added efficiency, improved processes, and improved fraud detection. Developed a disciplined, risk - managed approach to AI adoption by building the foundational governance, policy, vendor oversight, and technical controls to support future AI use across our organization.

We face substantial competition in all areas of our operations from a variety of different competitors, both within and beyond our principal markets, many of which are larger and may have more financial resources. Such competitors primarily include national, regional, community, and internet banks within the various markets in which we operate. We also face competition from many other types of financial institutions, including, without limitation, savings and loans, credit unions, finance companies, brokerage firms, insurance companies, and other financial intermediaries. The financial services industry could become even more competitive as a result of legislative and regulatory changes and continued consolidation. In addition, as customer preferences and expectations continue to evolve, technology has lowered barriers to entry and made it possible for banks to offer products and services in more areas in which they do not have a physical location and for non-bank such as FinTech companies, to offer products and services traditionally provided by banks, such as automatic transfer and automatic payment systems. Banks, securities firms, and insurance companies can merge under the umbrella of a financial holding company, which can offer virtually any type of financial service, including banking, securities underwriting, insurance (both agency and underwriting), and merchant banking. Many of our competitors have fewer regulatory constraints and may have lower cost structures. Additionally, due to their size, many competitors may be able to achieve economies of scale and, as a result, may offer a broader range of products and services as well as better pricing for those products and services than we can. Likewise, rapid adoption of AI by competitors, either in financial services or FinTech, could create significant pressure on pricing, automation, or client satisfaction. If we fail to keep pace with AI-enabled analytics and customer offerings, our competitive positioning could be detrimentally impacted.

The development and use of AI presents risks and challenges that may adversely impact our business.

Similar wording appears in 12 other banks' reports.

The development and use of AI by us or our third-party vendors poses significant risks. The evolving legal and regulatory landscape—covering intellectual property, privacy, consumer protection, employment, and more—could force costly changes and heighten non-compliance risks. AI models, especially generative ones, might produce biased, inaccurate, harmful, or otherwise ‘hallucinated’ outputs, disclose confidential information, or infringe on intellectual property rights. Moreover, their inherent complexity limits transparency, thus complicating oversight and error reduction. Reliance on third-party models further exposes us to risks associated with unauthorized training data and their risk management practices. Any of these issues could lead to legal liabilities, reputational harm, and adverse impacts on our business.

Fraud schemes are becoming more sophisticated, often involving criminal networks and techniques such as check fraud, ATM skimming, social engineering and phishing attacks to obtain personal information or impersonation of our clients through the use of falsified or stolen credentials, and identity theft. Fraudsters may also use automated tools and AI-enabled techniques to increase the scale and effectiveness of social engineering and impersonation. Fraudsters may also exploit online banking to establish accounts for fraudulent activities. Further, in addition to fraud committed against us, we may suffer losses as a result of fraudulent activity committed against third parties. Increased deployment of technologies, may reduce certain aspects of fraud; however, criminals are turning to other sources to steal personally identifiable information, such as unaffiliated healthcare providers and government entities, in order to impersonate the consumer to commit fraud. Many of these data compromises are widely reported in the media. We have increased investments in fraud prevention, but losses may still occur, potentially harming our customers, reputation, and financial condition. Fraud-related costs—including regulatory scrutiny, legal liability, and business disruption—could materially impact our operations.

The development and use of AI presents risks and challenges that may adversely impact our business.

Similar wording appears in 7 other banks' reports.

The development and use of AI by us or our third-party vendors poses significant risks. The evolving legal and regulatory landscape—covering intellectual property, privacy, consumer protection, employment, and more—could force costly changes and heighten non-compliance risks. AI models, especially generative ones, might produce biased, inaccurate, or harmful outputs, disclose confidential information, or infringe on intellectual property rights. Moreover, their inherent complexity limits transparency, complicating oversight and error reduction. Reliance on third-party models further exposes us to risks associated with unauthorized training data and their risk management practices. Any of these issues could lead to legal liabilities, reputational harm, and adverse impacts on our business.