Korea Investment & Securities Tops Returns in Retirement Pension Default Options

Aggressive and Neutral Investment Types Both Rank No. 1 in Annual Returns
Outstanding Returns Sustained Since Q1 2024

Korea Investment & Securities is continuing to attract pension funds as it delivers industry-leading performance in retirement pension management.

According to the status of default options for the third quarter of 2025 released by the Ministry of Employment and Labor on the 24th, Korea Investment & Securities' "Default Option Aggressive Investment Type BF1" recorded an annual return of 32.83%, the highest among all portfolios offered by retirement pension providers. During the same period, the firm's "Neutral Investment Type Portfolio 2" delivered an annual return of 18.19%, the best performance in that category. These results stand out even more considering that the average returns for all portfolios were only 14.72% for aggressive investment type, 10.18% for neutral investment type, and 6.57% for stable investment type.

Korea Investment & Securities' default option products have posted outstanding returns every quarter since the first quarter of 2024. Up to the third quarter of 2025, the company ranked first among all providers in 6 out of 7 quarters, and within the securities industry it has maintained the top position in returns for 7 consecutive quarters, continuing to deliver stable management performance.

This performance is analyzed as stemming from differentiated product composition. In particular, the "Korea Investment MySuper Alaseo Fund" series included in the default options has driven the high returns. This is a strategic product designed by Korea Investment Management, which benchmarked the system of Australia, an advanced pension market, for the first time in Korea. When default options were first introduced into the domestic retirement pension market in 2022, it was the only "new product" among 220 products from 38 providers to obtain approval as an eligible default option.

This product is characterized by comprehensively meeting the key requirements for retirement pension investment: long-term investment capability, global diversification, responsiveness to market changes, and low-cost investment. It invests in alternative assets such as gold, commodities, inflation-linked bonds, and real estate, which are effective for hedging inflation, while allocating assets in line with conditions in the Korean capital market through global diversification and investment in Korean bonds. It is designed to enable life-cycle-based customized management by building portfolios according to investment preference, including high-risk, medium-risk, and low-risk types, and it applies a risk management model that takes into account inflation and long-term returns.

Korea Investment & Securities was also selected as a top 10% provider in the overall comprehensive evaluation in the "2025 Excellent Retirement Pension Provider Assessment" recently announced by the Ministry of Employment and Labor. The "Retirement Pension Provider Assessment" is a statutory evaluation conducted annually, focusing on management performance, fee appropriateness, and organizational and service capabilities, and a total of 41 providers participated this year. Korea Investment & Securities ranked in the top 10% in all areas including investment product capabilities, returns on principal-and-interest-guaranteed products, and the pre-designated management system (default options). In particular, the company received high marks for separating the calculation and verification work of financial soundness assessments to enhance the objectivity and reliability of the results, and for supporting the practical convenience of corporate clients by providing contribution burden forecasting services to improve the efficiency of reserve management at defined benefit (DB) plan sponsor workplaces.

The company is also actively pursuing service innovation to enhance the convenience of retirement pension investing. This year, Korea Investment & Securities enabled real-time trading of Treasury bonds and high-grade corporate bonds through its Mobile Trading System (MTS) for on-exchange bond transactions, and added expected return simulation and tax calculation functions to improve investment convenience for participants in defined contribution (DC) retirement pensions and individual retirement pension (IRP) plans. Last year, the company became the first in the industry to launch an automatic periodic investment service for exchange-traded funds (ETFs), allowing customers to automatically purchase ETFs on dates they designate. As a result, the amount invested in ETFs through Korea Investment & Securities' DC and IRP accounts has almost doubled, rising from 1.7486 trillion won at the beginning of this year to 3.3845 trillion won as of October.

In addition, Korea Investment & Securities is expanding investment services based on artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, for example by offering robo-advisor discretionary management services for retirement pensions that automatically construct and manage portfolios tailored to each investor's risk profile.