From Thursday, securities accounts join a joint platform in Korea enabling consumer access to all financial services from banking to non-banking sector registered in Korea.

The Financial Supervisory Service said on Wednesday the new service will be available from 9:00 am on Thursday through a government-run website www.payinfo.or.kr

On the website managed by the Korea Financial Telecommunication & Clearing Institute (KFTC), customers can examine all of their financial accounts and apply for clearance of inactive accounts. Accounts whose balance is less than 500,000 won ($420) or inactive for over 12 months are eligible for account cancellation or transfer to another account at the request of customers on the website.

The integrated system which debuted three years ago with limited services have so far helped more than 7 million customers check their accounts, cancel 9.22 million small balance accounts and withdraw their money worth 94.5 billion won in total.

The FSC has gradually extended the services to the non-banking sector that to include, savings banks, mutual banks, insurance, credit card and eventually securities firms.

The FSC estimates there are about 40 million inactive or small balance accounts worth over 200 billion won at 22 brokerage houses as of end-June. The corresponding figure for all financial accounts including bank and non-bank accounts is estimated to be 2.2 trillion won.

By Jin Young-tae and Minu Kim

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