Solid Track Record in Cooperation with Blockchain Companies
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. She can be reached at yd.yoon@nhqv.com. -- Ed.
Kiwoom stands to benefit greatly from STO market expansion over the mid/long term, given that it boasts the largest number of retail customers in the country, backed by its strong retail platform. Also, the company has already worked together with blockchain companies over the past two years.
Crucial to preempt STO market
Kiwoom Securities’ MTS competitiveness should shine once security token trading begins, given that in the early days of the security token market, when product offerings show little differentiation from one another, the attractiveness of trading platforms should make a difference in securing customers. Kiwoom boasts a total of 12.5mn customer accounts, which is attributed to retail investors being drawn to the convenience of the firm’s retail platform.
We believe that at its infant stage, the STO market will see similar developments to the overseas stock trading market. In the early days of overseas stock trading, even though securities firms undertook diverse promotion events to lure customers, most customers stuck to their existing MTS platforms. As a result, Kiwoom now enjoys the largest share of the overseas stock trading market (30%), which is far ahead of the number-two and number-three players’ 10%-level market shares.
Solid track record in cooperation with blockchain companies
Last August, Kiwoom rolled out Kiwoom HERO S, its new integrated MTS app that combines all of its existing applications, in a move to enhance user convenience for trading via the offering of a one-stop app. We expect Kiwoom’s dominance in the retail brokerage market to further strengthen through economies of scale.
In addition, it has been forming diverse alliances with blockchain companies over the past two years. Music Cow, Tessa, and KASA, which are representative fractional investment firms in the areas of music, arts, and property, respectively, have been in cooperation with Kiwoom. In addition, the firm has also carried out investment for the establishment of STO infrastructure.
In the early days of the domestic security token market, we believe that Kiwoom will focus on offering trading and account management services. Given the firm’s strong competitive edge in these areas of the traditional securities market, there should be little difficulty for Kiwoom to dominate. In addition, Kiwoom should be in a more advantageous position in accepting new technologies, given that it has already established roots in the online domain.