KakaoPay Planning to Sell Investment Products

KakaoPay has acquired Baro Investments & Securities to sell various investment products via the KakaoTalk messenger.

The Financial Services Commission is planning to discuss KakaoPay’s acquisition of Baro Investments & Securities at its regular meeting on Feb. 5. The Securities and Futures Commission has already approved the acquisition and the Financial Services Commission is also likely to do so.

The impact of the acquisition is drawing the attention of many in the financial investment industry. KakaoPay is planning to sell various investment products via the KakaoTalk messenger and provide quality investment consulting services by using its artificial intelligence technology in order to differentiate itself from existing companies in the industry.

Opinions are split about the chance of success of the company likely to be called KakaoSecurities. The predominant opinion is that securities companies handle complicated and high-risk investment products unlike banks, trust and reliability are two of the most important elements required for entrusted asset management and, as such, the online securities companies’ impact will be smaller than that of KakaoBank with customers with large assets preferring face-to-face contact.

On the other hand, it is also said that KakaoBank’s significant influence can be repeated by KakaoSecurities. The bank established less than three years ago already has more than 10 million customers and its capital has soared from 300 billion won to 1.3 trillion won. In addition, the number of KakaoPay users topped 30 million in August last year and the volume of transactions on the platform broke the 50 trillion won mark in 2019.

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