- Development of the securities market on the back of policies of capital market growth and promotion of corporate IPOs.
- When the securities market was launched in 1956, only 12 corporations were listed and its trading centered on government bonds. Within a short period of time, however, the market has developed significantly thanks to the government policies such as the capital market growth plan and IPO policies for corporations in need of efficient industrial funding along with the implementation of 5-year economic development plans.
- Establishment of IT infrastructure for securities market
- With a top priority placed on smooth trading of securities and fair price formation of listed securities, the securities market has consistently improved its trading schemes in order to prop up quantitative growth of the market. In 1988 automation of trading execution started to replace the traditional trading through the trading posts in the floor for manual execution which was adopted in 1975. In September 1997, the entire listed stocks started to be traded via the computer system only. For advancement of the market, over the last half a century the KOSPI market has taken continuous steps such as building and improving IT infrastructure of various business parts of the securities market.
- Yeoido, a Wall Street of Korea
- In order to smoothly conduct the settlement activities in relation to securities trading and to systematically keep and transfer securities certificates, the Korea Securities Settlement Corporation, which is a predecessor of the current Korea Securities Depository, was established in 1974. For efficient computerization of the securities market, KOSCOM was incorporated in 1977. As a result of the qualitative and quantitative growth of the securities market, the KRX was relocated to the current building in 1979, laying the foundation for turning Yeoido into a Wall Street of Korea.
- Establishment of an advanced securities market through service innovation for market users
- In 1992, the Korean securities market was opened to foreign investors so that they can make investment directly in the listed corporations of Korea. A series of markets for financial derivatives products such as the stock price index futures and options were opened in 1996 and 1997, respectively, indicating that the KRX has been becoming a world-class exchange in fact. Currently, the KOSPI market is a place where investors from around 60 countries including the US, UK and Japan are trading the stocks of listed Korean corporations through around 50 KRX member securities firms at home and abroad.
- Fair and transparent market in investors` confidence
The KOSPI market conducts the following activities in order to form a fair price and to protect investors :
- It allows more corporations with strong profitability, stability and growth potential to be listed in order for investors to make a reliable investment;
- It makes listed corporations promptly disclose their corporate information needed for an investment decision;
- It provides the investors at home and abroad with a real-time access to the disclosed corporate information via Electronic Disclosure System; and
- It makes utmost efforts in establishing a state-of-the–art comprehensive surveillance system and performing the stock price monitoring and trading investigation.
- Internationally-competitive and user oriented comprehensive securities market
The KRX is reinforcing cooperation with foreign exchanges to prepare for alliances and ties among global markets.
In addition, the KRX has established a state-of-the-art IT system in an effort to respond to globalization and informatization, and also raised the level of convenience for market participants. Furthermore, a surveillance system covering both the spot and the futures markets was established for better transparency and fairness in the market, and the investigation into unfair cyber trading is being strengthened. In response to the growth in the number of domestic corporations listing their stocks on the overseas markets, the KRX has reformed the market structure, lowering the entry barrier and introducing the various global standards for trading and settlement to accommodate foreign corporations coming to the domestic market for listing.