Kiwoom Securities, South Korea’s first online stock trading service provider, has bulked up in line with exponential growth in day and retail trade.

The total value of its contracts in August exceeded 307.7 trillion won ($263 billion), soaring 275 percent from the same month a year ago.

The remarkable gain is driven by a huge increase not only in domestic stock transactions but also in retail derivatives trading such as overseas stocks, overseas futures and options and contracts for difference (CFD).

Overseas stock transactions via Kiwoom Securities from January to August surpassed 28 trillion won, increasing more than 17-fold from a year earlier. The daily transaction of foreign futures and options surged 194 percent on year in the first half and that of domestic stock CFDs soared 352 percent.

Buoyed by the brisk retail transactions, Kiwoom Securities posted the largest ever earnings in the second quarter ended June this year. Its operating profit on a consolidated basis amounted to 314 billion won and net profit 219.9 billion won in April to June, up 381 percent and 296 percent respectively.

Kiwoom Securities was founded in 2000 as the nation’s first online-only brokerage. It opened a record high of 431,000 new accounts in March when Korean individual investors flocked to the stock market to buy shares that became cheap at the height of the Covid-19 outbreak. The number of new accounts from January to August exceeded 8 million.

The brokerage said it will aggressively look for opportunities to enter new businesses based on the retail capacity to expand to merchant banking.

By Park In-hye and Choi Mira

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]