[Smart Finance Awards] MTS Difficult to Rank... "Continuous Innovation Required"

Judging Comments - Jung Soonseop, Chief Judge (Professor at Seoul National University School of Law)

The Asia Economy '2023 Asia Smart Finance Awards' marks its 13th year this year, established to select the best domestic Mobile Trading Systems (MTS) and help them evolve further. Despite a challenging stock market, securities firms have heavily invested in MTS services, creating a heated competitive landscape, within which the grand prize was awarded.

The evaluation to distinguish the best among domestic MTS was conducted in collaboration with the 'ESG Metaverse Development Institute,' a specialized organization for website and mobile app evaluation and certification in Korea. The assessment was based on the SM (Smart Mobile)-ABCDE app evaluation model patented by ESG Metaverse Development Institute, covering five categories: Customer-Friendliness (A), Business (B), Content (C), Design (D), and Technical Excellence (E). The final selection of awardees was made through judges' deliberations based on the first-round evaluation data provided by the ESG Metaverse Development Institute.

Moon Hyung-nam, Director of ESG Metaverse Development Institute and professor at Sookmyung Women's University Graduate School of Business, stated, "In the AI era, securities firms are strengthening AI-utilized services such as robo-advisors. Last year, the score gap between the highest and lowest MTS was over 20 points, but this year the gap narrowed to 7 points, making it difficult to distinguish superiority." He emphasized, "Since customers can switch to securities firms with better MTS, firms must continuously innovate to develop their MTS."

The 'MTS Grand Prize,' awarded by the Financial Services Commission Chairman, went to Korea Investment & Securities. Korea Investment's MTS, 'Korea Investment,' showed outstanding strengths in Content and Business categories and demonstrated excellence in Design, Technical Excellence, and Customer-Friendliness as well. Notably, it offers an 'Investment MBTI' service that analyzes investment types based on customers' stock investment patterns. Korea Investment also provides an AI-based overseas disclosure summary translation service, delivering disclosure documents written in various languages such as English, Chinese, and Japanese, summarized in Korean through its MTS, which received high praise.

Hana Securities, which ranked second overall and received the 'MTS Innovation Award' from the Financial Supervisory Service Chairman, was highly evaluated for its differentiated strategy based on a dual MTS approach: 'OneQ Pro' for professional investors and 'OneQ Stock' for general investors. Hana Securities' OneQ Pro aims to be "an all-in-one MTS from investment to asset management for professionals," serving as an integrated investment service channel for high-net-worth professional investors. OneQ Stock targets new investors in their 20s and 30s, enabling easy and simple investment experiences with small amounts and considering scalability for new investment services. By distinguishing roles, they maximized service efficiency tailored to each customer segment.

In the Customer-Friendliness (A) category, Mirae Asset Securities ranked first. Mirae Asset Securities' MTS, 'M-STOCK,' enhanced customer service support by providing stock community services, online tax consultation, 24-hour chatbot support for real-time assistance, and customer asset management utilizing MY data. Additionally, the introduction of innovative AI-powered services such as AI investment assistant, AI-based overseas news translation, and AI earnings call reader contributed to its top ranking in this category.

In the Business (B) category, Daishin Securities took first place. 'CYBOS' and 'Creon' are optimized trading systems for online financial product transactions, built on Daishin Securities' excellent IT capabilities. Furthermore, Daishin regularly renews its MTS across design, service, and processes to improve user convenience and accessibility. Notably, it has established and operates a system that immediately reflects customer feedback in MTS improvements, earning high marks.

In the Content (C) category, Samsung Securities' MTS 'mPOP' received high praise for providing digital investment information services to high-value customers who exceed certain asset size and transaction volume thresholds. The 'S.Lounge' service for digital affluent clients categorizes content into three lounges: Consulting Lounge, Investment Information Lounge, and Seminar Lounge.

Sharing first place with Samsung Securities, Shinhan Investment Corp. conducted a major renewal of its MTS 'Shinhan Alpha.' This renewal was driven by Shinhan Financial Group's mission of customer-centric philosophy, aiming to make Shinhan Alpha an investment platform that anyone can easily and comfortably participate in, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction. Providing personalized investment information was highly regarded.

KB Securities took first place in the Design (D) category. For customers familiar with traditional stock investment, KB offers the representative MTS service 'M-able,' while for novice investors and the MZ generation who are interested but need guidance, it provides the simple and easy investment platform 'M-able Mini.' M-able's Easy Trading mode, which links news and charts to help users understand price fluctuations based on news, was highly praised. It also supports 125% and 150% zoom modes on key screens such as watchlists and current prices, offering a customized environment for customers of various age groups. M-able Mini aims to lower investment barriers, emphasize fun, and evolve into an investment service frequently visited in daily life.

In the Technical Excellence (E) category, NH Investment & Securities ranked first. NH Investment & Securities' Namu Securities analyzes customer big data by stock to provide new investment information through 'NH Data,' delivering information such as average returns, holding quantities, and ratios of loss/profit investors to customers, earning high evaluations. The visual representation of purchase prices corresponding to 'buy at the knee, sell at the shoulder,' a well-known investment adage, also received positive responses.

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