Anna Jiwon Park has been covering the politics at The Korea Times since the summer of 2024, when she joined the press pool for the Office of the President in Korea. Prior to that, she spent about five years reporting extensively on financial markets, regulatory authorities and the financial industry. She joined The Korea Times in 2019 after spending eight years as a broadcast journalist at Arirang TV, Korea’s leading global broadcaster, covering politics, defense and culture.
Toss Securities targets millennial investors
Toss Securities CEO Park Jae-min speaks during an online press conference broadcast through YouTube Wednesday. / Courtesy of Toss Securities
By Anna J. Park
By Anna J. Park
Toss Securities, the first brokerage to open in Korea in 12 years, will be making its debut later this month. The securities firm is aiming to target millennial investors by including functions on its mobile trading system (MTS) that are easier to use than existing ones.
“Toss Securities intends to advance the stagnant mobile trading market, as it suggests a new mobile-centric investment model,” Park Jae-min, CEO of Toss Securities, said during an online press conference Wednesday.
The CEO explained that most MTS applications offer too many functions, making it harder for novice investors to use them.
“Toss Securities' applications plans provide trading systems with easy, safe and comfortable access,” the CEO added.
Toss' MTS application, which was demonstrated during the conference, helps retail investors explore company stocks by typing in any search word, such as electronic vehicles or secondary batteries. Invested companies' public announcements or sudden changes involving them will also be relayed to investors immediately through app messages.
The MTS also provides stock quotes as well as related news at the bottom of the screen, so that users don't need to separately search for the latest news about their invested companies. The screen also provides various top 100 stock lists, including most purchased, most searched and most lucrative in terms of operating profits.
Park explained that the firm's transactional fee remains at 0.015 percent, which he claimed is the lowest in the industry here, and previously registered Toss customers will be offered a zero-fee period for six months. The brokerage said about 250,000 customers have already registered for the trading service. Currently, Toss' mobile-based payment platform has 18 million customers.
The brokerage plans to release its MTS service to registered Toss customers before the start of the Lunar New Year holidays that begin Feb. 11. The service will be available to all customers by the end of the month.
The firm's focus on millennial investors, whose trading volume isn't large compared to those in their 40s or 50s, has led to questions over potential profits. But Park said he is optimistic about the prospects for the new service.
“Both the company and millennial investors will continue to grow. Millennial retail investors won't remain as novices forever, and they will grow. And we will grow as a company, too,” he said.