Only Cash for Chuseok?... Now Give Stock Gifts Instead

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jihwan] Recently, securities firms have launched 'stock gifting' services in celebration of the Chuseok holiday, which have gained great popularity. Stock gifting offers the advantage of not only being special but also potentially yielding decent profits, as stock investment has become a nationwide interest due to the stock market boom continuing since last year.

According to the securities industry on the 21st, NH Investment & Securities introduced the 'stock gifting' service on the 16th, allowing customers to gift stocks they own to others using only the recipient's name and mobile phone number through their Mobile Trading System (MTS). As stock investment has become recognized as a cultural trend especially among the MZ generation, sharing news and stories about stocks with friends has become a daily routine. Through this service, investors can share the experience of becoming shareholders and investing in companies with acquaintances who have no prior investment experience.

Toss Securities also offers a stock gifting service. Even without knowing the recipient's account information, stocks can be easily gifted by just knowing their name and phone number. Since its launch in July, the number of uses reached a total of 40,000 by the end of August.

Stock investment gift certificates, which allow the recipient to directly purchase stocks, are also steadily gaining popularity. Korea Investment & Securities has been selling financial gift certificates since March last year, the first in the industry, which can be used to invest in all financial investment products such as stocks, funds, and issued notes through online shopping malls. As of the end of last month, a cumulative total of 5.75 million certificates have been sold, amounting to 269 billion KRW. The process is simple: by entering the mobile coupon number into the securities firm's MTS, the recipient can purchase desired stocks corresponding to the gifted amount.

Shinhan Financial Investment has been selling overseas stock gift certificates (StockCon) through KakaoTalk Gift since December last year. Gift amounts are set at 4,100 KRW for Starbucks, 10,000 KRW for Disney, 12,000 KRW for Netflix, 25,000 KRW for Apple, 30,000 KRW for Tesla, and 50,000 KRW for Amazon. As of the end of last month, cumulative sales reached 47,000 units, totaling 755 million KRW. A key advantage is the ability to purchase overseas stock shares down to fractional shares. The gift certificate amount can be used to buy the mentioned stocks or other desired stocks within the fractional share eligible list.

KB Securities, which has been selling stock gift certificates for domestic stocks since the end of March, sold about 1 million units worth 17 billion KRW by last month. Ebest Investment & Securities, which launched its stock gift certificates in February, offers an additional 5% of the purchase price for investing in domestic and overseas stocks. For purchases over 100,000 KRW, they are running an event that gives an extra 5,000 KRW.