Asset Management Inflows Jump 92 Trillion Won in January, a Record High... Massive Money Move to Stocks? A Closer Look [BOK Focus]

January asset management inflows surge past last year's full-year increase
MMF growth reflects early-year seasonality... 37 trillion won jump in equity funds plays a major role
New equity fund inflows of 11.6 trillion won were sizable... but soaring

Last month, assets under management (AUM) at asset management companies surged by 92 trillion won. This explosive increase even exceeded the total annual increase recorded last year. In contrast, bank deposits declined sharply by more than 50 trillion won over the same period. At the start of the year, this stark divergence among financial institutions led to the interpretation that individuals had broken their bank deposits and savings en masse and triggered a major "money move" into the soaring stock market. However, a closer look shows that this view is only half right and half wrong. We broke down last month’s asset management company AUM and bank deposits item by item.

Behind the 92 trillion won surge in asset management AUM... KOSPI up 24%, existing balances did most of the cheering

According to the Bank of Korea’s release of "Financial Market Trends in January 2026" on the 12th, assets under management at asset management companies jumped by 91.9 trillion won last month. This is the largest monthly increase on record. It is an exceptional figure that even far surpasses last year’s full-year increase of 77.4 trillion won. Does this 91.9 trillion won jump mean that household funds moved en masse into the stock market?

AUM at asset management companies increased sharply, mainly in money market funds (MMFs) and equity funds, which grew by 33 trillion won and 37 trillion won, respectively. Looking first at the increase in MMFs, the rise was larger than in the same period of previous years, but it is hard to view it as truly exceptional. This is because MMFs tend to grow seasonally at the beginning of the year. MMFs are ultra-short-term funds that invest in short-term financial products such as government bonds and commercial paper to pursue stable returns. Typically, corporations withdraw money from MMFs at year-end to repay loans and manage financial ratios, then put funds back in and resume operations at the beginning of the year, which produces a rise in MMFs early in the year. In fact, MMFs increased by 26.1 trillion won in January 2024 and by 19.9 trillion won in January last year.

What stands out even more is the sharp increase in equity fund balances. Looking at the pattern of a 100 billion won decrease in January 2024 and a 5.4 trillion won increase in January 2025, there is no clear seasonal pattern, yet last month balances surged by 37 trillion won, driving the increase in asset management company AUM. This also greatly exceeds the full-year increases in equity funds in 2024 and 2025, which were 22.3 trillion won and 7.1 trillion won, respectively.

The backdrop to this surge was the explosive rally in the domestic stock market last month. The AUM figures for asset management companies compiled by the Bank of Korea are based on original fund subscriptions measured as net asset value (NAV), which reflects market valuation. Therefore, these numbers include not only new inflows and outflows, but also valuation gains and losses on existing balances. In other words, the sharp rise in domestic stock prices in January significantly boosted the valuation of existing balances. Equity fund balances stood at about 208.6 trillion won at the end of December last year. If the roughly 24% rise in the KOSPI last month is applied to this, the increase would be about 50 trillion won. Park Mincheol, Deputy Head of the Market Oversight Team in the Financial Markets Department at the Bank of Korea, noted, "Since the figures include a wide range of domestic and overseas equity funds, the KOSPI gain is not reflected one-for-one, but it is true that the sharp rally in the domestic stock market substantially increased existing balances and had a major impact on last month’s surge in asset management company AUM."

There were also substantial new inflows. According to the Korea Financial Investment Association, new subscriptions to asset management companies in January amounted to 11.6 trillion won. This means that a considerable amount of new money entered in response to the KOSPI’s rally as it broke through the 5,000 level. However, when compared with the total increase of 37 trillion won in equity fund balances over this period, this figure does not even reach half.

On the 12th, the KOSPI index and other market data are displayed on the status board in the dealing room of Hana Bank in Jung-gu, Seoul. Yonhap News

Bank deposits plunge 51 trillion won, led by corporations... Year-end temporary inflows of corporate funds flowed back out

Last month, bank deposits fell by 50.8 trillion won. This, too, gave rise to the interpretation that households had liquidated a large amount of existing deposits and savings to newly enter the stock market. However, last month’s decline in bank deposits was driven mainly by corporations. Demand deposits decreased by 49.7 trillion won during this period, and according to the Bank of Korea, the largest factor was the outflow at the start of the year of funds that corporations had temporarily parked in banks in December last year (39.3 trillion won) for year-end financial ratio management. Reductions related to value-added tax payments also played a role. Time deposits likewise decreased by 1 trillion won last month, largely due to withdrawals of funds by local governments for fiscal spending at the beginning of the year. The slowdown in lending, which weakened banks’ incentive to raise funds, was another contributing factor.

Then where did the new inflows into equity funds come from? A clue lies in the fact that other loans, which usually decline sharply at the beginning of the year, fell only slightly. Other loans, including general unsecured credit loans, decreased by just 400 billion won last month. This is a smaller decline than in January 2024 and January 2025, when they fell by 1.5 trillion won each. In previous years, when year-start bonuses were paid, borrowers typically used them to repay credit loans, but this year, under the influence of the sharp rally in the domestic stock market, those funds were instead dispersed into domestic and overseas stock investment. It is therefore possible to interpret that a portion of the new money flowing into equity funds was sourced from here.