Active Securities Accounts Surge

By Park Hyong-ki

Staff Reporter

The number of ``active'' securities accounts at brokerage houses has topped 11 million for the first time, according to the Korea Securities Dealers Association (KSDA) Sunday. Active accounts refer to those that have been used for securities transactions over the past six months with deposits of over 100,000 won.

The number has been increasing since the stock market started to gain its upward momentum in 2005. Last year, there were only about 8 million accounts, but soared to 10 million last July, reaching some 11.1 million at the end of November. In 2000, it only stood at 900,000 accounts.

Given that the economically active population is at 25 million, this means that more than four out of every 10 hold such an active account for stock or bond trading.

Also, it said an average of 10,000 new accounts have been opened since the beginning of this year. The association attributes the rise in the number of accounts to the recent bull market run.

``A lot of customers were interested in opening up accounts after the main bourse stepped into uncharted territory above 2,000 points last summer,'' said an official of the KSDA.

KSDA officials expect the number of accounts to grow further in 2008.

An increasing number of cash management accounts (CMAs) added the upward momentum overall amid a shift of savings to investment products. The number of CMAs reached 4.6 million, up 221 percent from last year. The outstanding balance of CMAs increased by 205 percent to 26.4 trillion won.

The outstanding balance of retail borrowing for stock trading also soared 805 percent to 4.5 trillion won as of last week.

Bullish stocks also increased the number of executives and managers at securities firms to over 34,192 at the end of October, up about 12 percent from a year ago. Securities firms also saw their branches nationwide grow by 8 percent to 1,625.

phk@koreatimes.co.kr