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| The Korea Exchange building in Seoul / Korea Times file |
By Kim Bo-eun
The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) will launch a comprehensive inspection into the Korea Exchange in the latter half of this year, the FSS said, Wednesday.
This will be the first large-scale inspection of the securities exchange operator in nine years since the previous one in 2010.
An FSS official said he could not provide detailed information, but confirmed the FSS and the Financial Services Commission (FSC) have agreed on the inspection.
The two bodies are known to have been discussing the issue and the FSS had intended for the inspection to take place in the first few months of this year, but it was delayed due to a disagreement with the FSC.
The Korea Exchange is a private entity, but the FSS can conduct an inspection upon the request of the FSC, because it assumes tasks commissioned by the government. The exchange operator switched from a public institution to a private entity in 2015, a decade after it was established in 2005.
While the FSS and FSC have yet to decide on the scope of the inspection, the FSS' stance is that a comprehensive audit should be conducted.
"This would enable a much broader inspection," an FSS official said.
The inspection is likely to look into the majority of tasks the Korea Exchange assumes, including listing and ousting companies, supervising the market, operating the trading system and protecting consumers.
The prosecution searched the Korea Exchange in March, over suspicions of its role in listing Samsung BioLogics in 2016. At the time, the bio-health unit of Samsung had been failing to generate operating income.
The bourse operator made revisions to related regulations that stated companies could be listed if they showed potential, even if profits were low. The prosecution is currently investigating Samsung BioLogics over allegations of accounting fraud.
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