Making Stock Trading a Daily Habit... Active Accounts Surpass 40 Million

On the 23rd, with the KOSPI index starting higher buoyed by the positive momentum in the US stock market, dealers are working in the Hana Bank dealing room in Euljiro, Seoul. Photo by Mun Honam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Junho] The number of active stock trading accounts with a deposit asset of over 100,000 KRW and at least one transaction in the past six months has surpassed 40 million.

According to the Korea Financial Investment Association on the 23rd, the number of active stock trading accounts reached 40,067,529 as of the 19th. This marks an increase of 10 million accounts in just one year since March last year. Typically, it takes about 5 to 8 years for the number of accounts to increase by 10 million, but the growth rate has accelerated.

The number of active stock trading accounts exceeded 10 million in 2007, then surpassed 20 million five years later in 2012. After exceeding 30 million in March last year, it rose to 35 million accounts by December last year.

The recent boom in the stock market, including the rise of the KOSPI last year, appears to have attracted many individual investors to the stock market. Investor deposits, which are standby funds for the stock market, remain at around 60 trillion KRW. Additionally, the launch of new securities firms such as KakaoPay Securities and Toss Securities seems to have contributed to this trend.

Investor interest in public offering subscriptions, such as SK Bioscience's IPO subscription involving about 2.4 million accounts, is also analyzed to have contributed to the expansion of active accounts. With upcoming IPOs from companies like Krafton, KakaoBank, and Yanolja, the number of accounts is expected to increase further.

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