Foreign Stock Settlements Up 384%... 'Attracting Seohak Ants' Heats Up

Securities Firms Fiercely Compete to Attract Customers with Commission Rate Cuts, Cash Support, and Free Real-Time Quotes Services

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jihwan] Domestic securities firms are actively competing to attract 'Seohak Ants'?individual investors increasingly investing in overseas stocks. They are offering various events such as free real-time stock quotes, commission reductions, preferential exchange rates, and investment fund support.

According to the Korea Securities Depository on the 22nd, the settlement amount for foreign currency stocks last year was $198.32 billion (approximately 218 trillion KRW), a 383.9% increase from the previous year.

As the scale of overseas stock investment rapidly grows, securities firms are accelerating efforts to attract individual investors. The most representative benefits are reduced transaction commission rates and preferential exchange rates. Generally, a commission of about 0.25% is charged for overseas stock transactions. Mirae Asset Daewoo applies a reduced overseas stock transaction commission rate of 0.07%. New customers who open accounts online and trade overseas stocks by the 26th of this month will receive preferential commission rates until the end of June. NH Investment & Securities offers a 100% preferential exchange rate benefit until March.

Investment funds can also be supported in cash. Samsung Securities provides $100 to new customers or customers who have not traded overseas stocks from 2015 until last month when they trade overseas stocks online by the end of this month. Upon applying for the event, $20 is deposited, and if the customer meets stepwise criteria by trading overseas stocks online above a certain amount, they can receive up to an additional $80 as a trading congratulatory bonus.

Domestic securities firms are also making the real-time overseas stock quote service, which previously charged up to 10,000 KRW, free of charge. Domestic investors who did not use this service have been receiving stock quotes about 15 minutes later than local times. Since Mirae Asset Daewoo started providing real-time quotes such as US stock real-time bid prices, order volumes, and transaction prices free of charge from November last year, Samsung Securities, KB Securities, Kiwoom Securities, and others have recently joined the free service trend.

Securities firms have also been focusing on expanding information provision, which has been pointed out as a disadvantage of overseas stock investment. Kiwoom Securities provides free Korean-translated research materials on over 10,000 US stocks from Morningstar, a US investment research company.

Efforts to expand the opening hours of the overseas stock pre-market (trading before the regular market opens) are also underway. Since the 16th, Kiwoom Securities has advanced the US stock pre-market trading time by two hours to 7 PM. Earlier, KB Securities also moved the US pre-market trading time from 9 PM to 7 PM starting last month. Many investors used the pre-market due to the inconvenience caused by the time difference, as the US regular market opens at 11:30 PM Korean time. Expanding trading hours is a measure to enhance investor convenience.

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