"Contactless Chuseok, Stock Gifts via Mobile"

Popularity of Internet Malls and KakaoTalk Stock Gift Certificates in the Securities Industry

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jihwan] Chuseok is just around the corner. Although it is a recurring holiday every year, choosing gifts for parents or children is always a dilemma. With the recent stock market boom making stock investment a nationwide interest, how about stocks as a gift this Chuseok? Besides the uniqueness as a gift, you can also expect decent returns over time. Recently, securities firms have been competing to offer related services such as ‘stock gifting,’ making it easy and convenient to gift stocks.

According to the securities industry on the 16th, Korea Investment & Securities has been selling financial gift certificates that allow investment in all financial investment products such as stocks, funds, and issuance notes through online shopping malls since March last year, the first in the industry. It is so popular that a cumulative total of 5.75 million certificates have been sold by the end of August this year. The amount is about 269 billion KRW. The method is simple. By entering the mobile coupon number into the securities firm's Mobile Trading System (MTS), the recipient can purchase the desired stocks according to the amount received.

Shinhan Financial Investment has been selling overseas stock gift certificates (StockCon) through KakaoTalk Gift since December last year. You can gift fixed amounts such as Starbucks 4,100 KRW, Disney 10,000 KRW, Netflix 12,000 KRW, Apple 25,000 KRW, Tesla 30,000 KRW, and Amazon 50,000 KRW. As of the end of last month, cumulative sales reached 47,000 cases, with sales amounting to 755 million KRW. The biggest advantage is that you can purchase overseas stock shares down to fractional shares. You can buy the mentioned stocks or other desired stocks (within fractional share eligible stocks) up to the gift certificate amount.

KB Securities, which has been selling stock gift certificates that can be used to purchase domestic stocks since the end of March this year, sold about 1 million cases worth 17 billion KRW by last month. Ebest Investment & Securities, which launched stock gift certificates in February, allows investment in domestic and overseas stocks by adding 5% to the purchase price of the gift certificate. They are also running an event that gives an additional 5,000 KRW for purchases over 100,000 KRW.

However, a recent significant decline in payment convenience is regrettable. This is because securities firms have completely stopped credit card payments for financial gift certificates since the end of last month. Currently, only cash payments such as account transfers are possible when purchasing financial gift certificates.

There is also a way to gift stocks you already own instead of gift certificates. Toss Securities’ stock gifting service allows you to gift stocks you hold to others. Even if you do not know the recipient’s account information, you can easily gift stocks by just knowing their name and phone number. Since its launch in July, the number of uses reached 40,000 cases by the end of August.

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