[2023 Capital Investment Award] Kiwoom Securities, a Securities Firm Without IT System Failure Complaints

Kiwoom Securities Wins Grand Prize in IT Innovation Sector

Eom Ju-seong Appointed as New CEO of Kiwoom Securities

Kiwoom Securities received the Best Award in the IT Innovation category at the '2023 Asia Capital Investment Awards.' The company was highly praised for its bold investment in IT infrastructure, achieving zero complaints related to system failures last year, the only securities firm to do so.

Kiwoom Securities is South Korea's number one retail brokerage specialized online securities firm, with approximately 3 million active accounts. Since it has no branches, IT operational capabilities are absolutely crucial for the company. If an issue arises, a surge of customers can cause further problems.

Accordingly, Kiwoom Securities continuously increases its investment scale to prepare for all possible scenarios in advance. The annual IT operation expenses have increased every year: 63 billion KRW in 2020, 76.4 billion KRW in 2021, and 91.9 billion KRW in 2022. In the first half of this year, IT operation expenses amounted to 47.6 billion KRW, a 5.5% increase compared to 45.1 billion KRW in the first half of last year.

As a result of this proactive investment in IT operations, the number of complaints related to system failures dropped from 152 cases in 2020 to 7 cases in 2021, and zero cases in 2022. Kiwoom Securities plans to continue investing in system stabilization through optimization efforts so that investors can trade in a stable environment as an online securities firm.

Furthermore, the company is accelerating its token securities business. After signing account usage agreements with Musicow and Tessa, it plans to provide fractional investment services through real-name verified accounts. In addition to the (non-monetary) trust beneficiary certificate structure designated as an innovative financial service by the Financial Services Commission, Kiwoom is preparing additional partnerships with companies dealing in art pieces, Korean beef, and others, which have recently been judged as securities under investment contract securities.

Also, in August, Kiwoom signed a memorandum of understanding with Koscom to promote a 'Token Securities Platform Pilot Project.' Once the Token Securities Act is passed, the two companies plan to build a standard platform based on the systems they have developed, enabling securities firms as account management institutions and issuers as fractional investment operators to start business immediately. Through this, they aim to lead the issuance and distribution business of token securities in both the on-market (digital securities market) of the Korea Exchange and the off-market sector via the token securities platform.