KSD, Find Your Dormant Securities Investment Assets... "Claim Stocks and Dividends Worth 66.4 Billion KRW"

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Ju-yeon] The Korea Securities Depository announced on the 19th that it will conduct the "2020 Dormant Securities Investment Property (Lost Stocks and Unclaimed Stocks) Recovery Campaign" from the 26th of this month to November 27th to support investors in recovering their property rights.

Since 2009, the Depository has regularly conducted the "Unclaimed Stocks Recovery Campaign" and has continued activities to find the owners of dormant financial assets. Since 2018, it has integrated the recovery activities for lost stocks and unclaimed stocks.

As of the end of September this year, the dormant securities investment properties held by the Depository include approximately 1.07 million shares of lost stocks (market value about 1.2 billion KRW), about 37.5 billion KRW in lost stock proceeds, and about 2.6 million unclaimed shares (market value about 27.7 billion KRW, 13,028 shareholders). A significant portion of these arose because shareholders holding physical stock certificates were unaware of the occurrence of lost stocks or did not receive new shares issued due to reasons such as bonus issues or stock dividends.

During this campaign period, the Depository plans to actively promote various measures to find the owners of lost stocks and unclaimed shares.

For lost stocks, the Depository will encourage the return of proceeds and notify shareholders of the occurrence of lost stocks through cooperation with securities companies where shareholders have deposited or withdrawn physical stock certificates. For unclaimed stocks, it plans to notify shareholders of stock receipt by identifying their current residence with the cooperation of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.

Additionally, to prevent the re-spread of COVID-19 and support the revitalization of the low-income economy, the campaign will, for the first time since its inception, implement a method of receiving unclaimed stocks through "non-face-to-face real-name verification."

The non-face-to-face real-name verification will be conducted via video calls and submission of ID copies, or by verifying existing financial institution accounts along with submission of ID copies. Detailed procedures will be notified to the target shareholders through official notices. The non-face-to-face stock receipt will be temporarily implemented only during the campaign period to support low-income investors struggling due to COVID-19.

The general public can check the existence of lost stocks and unclaimed shares anytime on the Korea Securities Depository website.

The Depository plans to ensure that as many dormant securities investment properties as possible find their owners during the approximately five-week campaign period. Since 2009, 7.74 million shares of lost stocks, 70.8 billion KRW in lost stock proceeds, and 450 million unclaimed shares (worth about 823.4 billion KRW) have been returned to their owners.

The Depository stated, "Although the campaign environment has significantly deteriorated this year due to COVID-19, we plan to support many citizens in confirming whether they hold dormant securities investment properties and recovering their hidden financial assets through extensive public media promotion during the campaign period."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.