SK, HMC Fail to Meet Online Trading Criteria
By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
A total of nine Korean brokerages, including SK Securities and Prudential Investment & Securities, provide inferior online services to customers, according to a domestic consultancy Wednesday.
Stockpia disclosed its 2008 fourth-quarter survey on online trading systems of the country's 28 brokerages and gave 19 of them at least 75 points out of 100 ― the minimum to score an ``A.'' In other words, nine failed to get an ``A.''
The nine worst performers were Leading Investment & Securities, HMC Investment Securities, Hanyang Securities, Golden Bridge Investment & Securities, Bookook Securities, Shin Young Securities and Yuhwa Securities, on top of SK and Prudential.
``We factored in a variety of criteria, such as how convenient the Web-based transactions system is and how well brokerages offer information to end users,'' Stockpia manager Kim Doe-yeon said.
``In order to remain in the list's higher echelon, brokerages are required to invest money and staff in the system. Underachievers usually fail to do so,'' Kim said.
She added that those who got low grades over the final quarter of 2008 usually remained at the rock bottom throughout the year while strong performers continued to stay in the upper positions.
Hyundai Securities ranked first three times last year on Stockpia's quarterly survey. The outfit was positioned as a runner-up in the second quarter.
In comparison, Prudential failed to score an ``A'' last year, as did most of the remaining eight underachievers.
``We channeled a great deal of money into the online system to come up with customized services over the past several years. That seems to work,'' a Hyundai spokesman said.
When contacted, Prudential's public relation team said that the Seoul-based firm's low rank was caused by its unique business focus.
``Basically, our focus is on asset management instead of equities trading. Hence, we put online trading on the back burner,'' a Prudential spokesman said.
``This compares to other online trading-oriented companies. But we took full advantage of available assets to provide decent online trading services to customers,'' he added.