Koscom Accelerates Development of Token Securities Platform

Token securities are emerging as a new growth area in the financial industry. Koscom is accelerating the development of platforms to revitalize the token securities market.

According to Koscom on the 31st, a survey conducted among 29 domestic securities firms showed that 34% of respondents expect the token securities market to grow as much as the Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) market in the future, and 72% of the securities firms evaluated the token securities market positively.

Accordingly, related industries are accelerating token businesses by forming consortia, and several securities firms are taking the lead in concretizing the token securities business.

Koscom is preparing a shared infrastructure and distributed ledger services so that financial companies and issuers preparing to promote the token securities business can focus on the essence of the business?discovering, issuing, and managing good products that correspond to the competitiveness of the business?rather than on infrastructure construction and other issues.

In the survey, 34% of securities firms cited infrastructure construction and operating costs as obstacles to promoting the token securities business, and more than half of the securities firms answered that they plan to allocate a budget of over 1 billion KRW for initial construction costs.

Considering not only system construction costs but also personnel and maintenance costs, the actual expenses are expected to be even higher. However, if the shared platform provided by Koscom is used, costs will be significantly reduced, facilitating market entry for various institutions.

Since token securities correspond to a new form of securities such as physical securities and electronic securities, building token securities services requires not only blockchain technology but also capital market expertise for linkage with the capital market. Koscom has been responsible for capital market IT for over 40 years and has been researching blockchain technology since 2016, applying it to various capital market operations. This will be utilized in the token securities shared platform to provide stable services.

Koscom plans three services: issuance platform, distribution platform, and distributed ledger. According to the guidelines presented by financial authorities, institutions such as financial companies cannot distribute token securities issued by themselves on their own platforms. Despite these restrictions, the survey showed that 54.8% of securities firms plan to operate their own issuance platforms while simultaneously promoting distribution platforms that distribute token securities issued by other companies.

In response, Koscom plans to provide common infrastructure for financial companies and issuers and support each party to focus on their core competencies. Kim Seong-hwan, Executive Director of Koscom’s Digital Business Division, said, "In the early market stage, concerns about business feasibility relative to cost investment are inevitable, and Koscom’s shared platform will be a stable alternative. What matters in the token securities market is not which infrastructure is used but which differentiated underlying assets are discovered. Therefore, we will enable financial companies to use Koscom’s system without excessive investment in infrastructure."

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