[Asia Exclusive] Kiwoom Securities Opens New Data Center... Triples Customer Capacity

Opening Internet Data Center (IDC) for Stable Customer Access
Upgrading Speed and Accuracy by Improving System Performance

This year, it is no exaggeration to say that the domestic stock market was led by individual investors. During the stock market crash caused by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), individual investors engaged in 'buying at the bottom' based on abundant liquidity. Investor deposit funds, which are standby funds for the stock market, surged from around 29 trillion won at the end of last year to surpass 63 trillion won in September this year, more than doubling, and a new term 'Donghak Ants' was coined by likening the investment style of individuals to the 'Donghak Movement.'

Kiwoom Securities CEO Lee Hyun emphasized in an interview with Asia Economy on the 14th, "Individual investment demand for risky assets will continue to increase in the second half of the year," adding, "We will continue to provide customer-centric platforms and services." He also explained, "In addition to the retail sector, we plan to generate balanced profits in the securities industry's core areas such as the IB division, wholesale, and investment management, and focus on launching new businesses for long-term profit diversification."

In this domestic stock market situation, Kiwoom Securities was one of the biggest beneficiaries. With the domestic and overseas stock investment boom, Kiwoom Securities, which has a high retail proportion, is expected to see a significant increase in performance in the third quarter following the second quarter, and its recent stock price is also trending upward. According to financial information provider FnGuide, Kiwoom Securities posted the highest-ever half-year net profit in the first half of this year, and its operating profit for the third quarter of this year is expected to increase by 99.8% year-on-year to 171.4 billion won.

However, as many individual investors surged, there were also many issues and controversies. The representative case was the oil negative (-) recognition error incident in April. At that time, due to the unprecedented plunge in oil prices, the oil price fell into negative territory, but the Home Trading System (HTS) experienced a computer error. Also, in March, amid the stock market volatility caused by COVID-19, there were delays in access and errors in balance display. As a result, voices demanding system improvements have been growing among investors.

Lee Hyun, CEO of Kiwoom Securities, said, "In the first half of the year, due to the COVID-19 crisis, uncertainty in domestic and international financial markets continued, and the index, which had plunged sharply, rebounded in a short period, resulting in an average daily stock market trading volume of 22.6 trillion won in the first half, more than doubling compared to the same period last year. During this process, as the market leadership of individual investors strengthened, the number of users surged and the trading volume increased sharply, causing some unexpected price formations and errors."

To improve this, Kiwoom Securities recently conducted a comprehensive system inspection and completed improvement work. To expand customer access capacity, they increased servers and upgraded communication lines, tripling customer access capacity compared to March, and additionally opened a new Internet Data Center (IDC) to ensure stable customer access. Furthermore, by changing the program structure of login, order, and execution processes, they enhanced system processing performance and speed.

CEO Lee emphasized, "We will continue to promote system performance improvements so that investors can trade in a stable environment through system optimization work, including infrastructure changes that allow horizontal expansion in response to increased trading volume in the future."