Jung Il-moon, President of Korea Investment & Securities, "Abuse of power by the second largest shareholder against the company goes against common sense"

Appearance as Witness at Political Affairs Committee Audit Amid Agency Fee Nonpayment Controversy
Contract Fulfilled as Agreed... Bearing Event Cost of 370 Million Won
"Misunderstanding in Communication... Trying to Resolve It Well"

Jung Il-moon, CEO of Korea Investment & Securities, explained, "Korea Investment & Securities is the second largest shareholder of Indexmine," and added, "It is against common sense for the second largest shareholder to bully the company."

On the 26th, Jung appeared as a witness at the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee hearing and stated, "Regarding the allegations of unpaid startup fees and technology theft, we have fulfilled the contract exactly as stipulated."

Earlier, fintech startup Indexmine filed a complaint with the Fair Trade Commission in June this year, accusing Korea Investment & Securities of unfair trade practices under the Fair Trade Act. In April 2020, Indexmine signed a business partnership and consignment contract with Korea Investment & Securities based on its stock price prediction league service. Indexmine claimed that it spent about 1.2 billion KRW on personal customer event agency work but only received 18 million KRW in fees from Korea Investment & Securities.

Yoon Chang-hyun, a member of the People Power Party, asked Jung, "Indexmine says the actual expenses for agency work range from a minimum of 1.2 billion KRW to a maximum of 4.6 billion KRW. Why is there such a discrepancy?"

Jung replied, "Korea Investment & Securities covered event costs and paid about 370 million KRW," adding, "We signed a designated agent contract agreeing to pay 3 million KRW monthly, and the contract was made based on mutual agreement." He further stated, "I want to emphasize that payments are being made according to the given contract."

Jung also addressed the allegations of technology theft by Indexmine. He said, "The method we use has been the webview method employed by all securities firms in the capital market since 2018," and added, "The web trading system (WTS) based on the application programming interface (API) that Indexmine refers to started at the end of 2020." He continued, "There seems to be some misunderstanding in communication between the parties, and we are trying to resolve that issue well."

Previously, in January 2021, Korea Investment & Securities invested 1 billion KRW in Indexmine and secured a 16.6% stake.