[2023 Capital Investment Awards] Korea Investment & Securities Leading Digital Innovation in Finance

Grand Prize

Korea Investment & Securities has been honored with the Grand Prize at the '2023 Asia Capital Investment Awards.' Korea Investment & Securities continuously supplies customer-centric financial investment products and leads global innovative growth. Through competitive bond, alternative, and stable fund products, it enhances the stability and profitability of customer asset management. The balance of financial products for individual customers increased by 11.96 trillion KRW within a year, from 38.44 trillion KRW in June 2022, surpassing 50 trillion KRW for the first time in the securities industry.

Korea Investment & Securities strives to increase customer trust in public funds and provide competitive financial products. It introduced the overseas equity profit-differentiated public fund 'Korea Investment Global New Growth Fund' and the domestic equity profit-differentiated public fund 'Hantoo Value K-Power Fund.' These funds separate beneficiary certificates into senior and subordinated classes, where subordinated investors absorb losses first up to a certain limit.

By launching the 'Korea Investment Carlyle CLO Fund,' it created a path for domestic individual investors to access global investment products that were previously difficult to reach. In the era of high interest rates, as preference for safe assets spreads, the number of investors focusing on bond investments has increased. Various bonds are supplied quickly according to market conditions. Enhancing the convenience of online bond trading, the number of Bankis bond trading customers exceeded 50,000 this year, up from 28,000 at the end of last year.

Based on the title of 'the first mega investment bank (IB),' Korea Investment & Securities is solidifying its top position in the issuance note market. As of the end of June, the balance of Korea Investment & Securities issuance notes exceeded 13 trillion KRW, recording the largest scale among securities firms. In a high interest rate environment with elevated rates, issuance notes have served as a useful short-term investment option for investors.

It is also recognized as an excellent operator in the retirement pension sector. By proposing customized management strategies for companies, it improved the performance of defined benefit (DB) type retirement pension management. In the '2023 Excellent Retirement Pension Operator Evaluation' announced by the Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service, Korea Investment & Securities was selected as a top 10% operator in the overall comprehensive evaluation.

In recent years, Korea Investment & Securities has been the fastest to transform within the financial sector by consecutively launching innovative financial services focused on the digital environment. In line with the Financial Services Commission's 'Plan to Organize Issuance and Distribution Regulatory Systems,' it is proactively leading the token securities business. It established the consortium 'Korea Investment ST Friends' in partnership with KakaoBank, Toss Bank, and others, and recently succeeded in building issuance infrastructure. While promoting a distributed ledger mainnet for the token securities market with initial partners, it has expanded cooperative relationships with various fractional investment partners.

Possessing the highest level of IB capabilities domestically, Korea Investment & Securities supplies various investment products that can broaden the investment base by leveraging deal sourcing capabilities. KakaoBank and Toss Bank are preparing to make token securities products easily accessible through platform technologies that have transformed the banking ecosystem.

Additionally, the overseas stock fractional investment platform Ministock launched domestic stock trading services last month and added domestic stocks to its 'Theme' feature. Ministock is an overseas stock fractional trading service launched by Korea Investment & Securities in August 2020. It provides a simple user interface (UI) to allow novice investors to easily enter the asset management market and enhances trading convenience. Recently, through the Ministock 3.0 revamp, domestic stock trading services have started. Along with overseas fractional stock investment, all domestic stocks listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets can be traded in real-time in one-share units.

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