FSS Detects 70 Illegal Stock Leading Rooms Using YouTube and KakaoTalk...43% Increase from Previous Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jihwan] A stock leading room that charged investors huge service fees by claiming publicly available information as undisclosed information has been caught by the Financial Supervisory Service. This company charged a monthly service fee of 2.5 million KRW on the condition of analyzing investors' held stocks and selectively providing undisclosed information, but the information was publicly available and accessible to anyone.

The Financial Supervisory Service announced on the 8th that as of September this year, a total of 70 leading rooms have been caught by financial authorities for illegal and unsound business practices. The detection rate was 14.8%, an increase of 0.8 percentage points compared to the previous year. The number of detected companies increased by 21 (42.9%) from 49 companies in the same period last year to 70 companies.

Looking at the detailed types, violations of reporting obligations under the Capital Markets Act by quasi-investment advisory businesses accounted for the largest number with 39 cases (53.4%). Representative cases include violations of reporting obligations such as changes in location or representatives.

Next, consultations for unregistered investment advisory business conducted one-on-one via KakaoTalk, phone calls, etc., accounted for 17 cases (23.3%). A Financial Services Commission official stated, "Quasi-investment advisory businesses are only allowed to provide advice through publications or emails issued to unspecified many, and cannot conduct advisory activities one-on-one or interactively via KakaoTalk or similar platforms." In addition, there were 17 cases (23.3%) of unregistered investment discretionary business using stock automatic trading programs.

The Financial Services Commission explained that illegal activities are shifting from simple one-on-one unregistered investment advisory to unregistered investment discretionary activities aimed at high profits. This involves installing automatic trading programs on investors' computers that execute orders linked to the quasi-investment advisory business's order details.

The Financial Services Commission plans to continue intensive inspections of leading rooms operated by quasi-investment advisory businesses and promptly block online channels until the end of December. From December, special inspections of online personal broadcasts (YouTube) will also be conducted.

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