Kiwoom Securities surpassed 100 billion won ($68.2 million) in retirement pension assets less than two months after entering the business, the company said Monday. The rapid accumulation reflects a steady flow of individual retirement pension (IRP) sign-ups from its existing stock-trading customer base, along with an early fee-waiver policy.
Assets crossed the 100 billion won threshold as of Friday, the company said. Kiwoom Securities completed its registration as a retirement pension provider in April and began offering the service on June 1.
About 96 percent of IRP subscribers are existing Kiwoom Securities customers, according to the company. Customers who had been using its mobile trading system (MTS) "Yeongungmun" for stock trading are now moving into retirement pension products, extending the company's retail investor base into long-term asset management.
Kiwoom Securities is waiving fund management and asset management fees for the first year across all three pension plan types — defined benefit (DB), defined contribution (DC) and IRP. For DB plans, the company plans to maintain fees at the lowest level in the industry even after the waiver period ends.
In the corporate DC market, the company is expanding its online services. Through a "retirement pension enrollment request" feature within Yeongungmun, employees can directly ask their employers to adopt a retirement pension plan, and the company has built a system that allows corporate consultations and contract procedures to be completed entirely online. Kiwoom Securities said it aims to use this approach to shift the market toward greater subscriber choice, moving away from the traditional model in which employers alone select pension providers.
The retirement pension service runs within the same MTS environment as regular stock trading. Features include real-time ETF trading, installment investing and automated order monitoring. An AI-based automatic portfolio management service is also available for customers with limited investment experience. Additional tools include "Suikmoa Yeongeun," which automatically transfers investment returns into a pension account, and an automatic reinvestment function for distributions and interest.
Kiwoom Securities is also broadening its product lineup. At launch, it became the first retirement pension provider to offer foreign-currency repurchase agreements to both individual and corporate customers, and it plans to roll out foreign-currency bonds centered on US government bonds on a rolling basis.
Domestic retirement pension assets reached 501.4 trillion won at the end of last year, a 16.1 percent increase from the previous year and the first time the total exceeded 500 trillion won, according to the Financial Supervisory Service. Securities firms held 131.5 trillion won of that total, accounting for 26.2 percent.
Kiwoom Securities entered the market as the 15th securities firm to become a retirement pension provider, a latecomer to a space dominated by banks and large brokerages. The company is differentiating itself through an online-first strategy built on its existing retail customer base and MTS capabilities. Its entry has intensified platform competition in the retirement pension market.
Kiwoom Securities plans to treat this year as a period focused on building a stable business foundation, with efforts centered on expanding its IRP customer base and strengthening online services in the corporate DC market. Over the longer term, the company aims to build a digital pension platform — supported by AI-based pension management services — covering everything from enrollment and asset management to benefit payments.
"This achievement is significant not just as a number — 100 billion won in assets — but because it shows that existing stock-trading customers have chosen Kiwoom Securities as their long-term retirement asset management partner," said Eom Ju-seong, chief executive of Kiwoom Securities. "We will grow into a trusted 'investing pension' provider on the strength of subscriber-centered services and platform competitiveness."
kacew@heraldcorp.com
