Kakao Pay Securities is making a full-fledged push into the IPO underwriting business after securing an investment dealing license, marking a strategic pivot from its retail brokerage-focused model toward proprietary capital-driven investment banking.<\/p>\n
The company announced on July 13 that it had obtained an investment dealing (securities) license from South Korea’s financial authorities. The Financial Services Commission gave final approval earlier this month to Kakao Pay Securities’ application for additional registration of financial investment business units.<\/p>\n
The core significance of this license is that Kakao Pay Securities can now move beyond simple securities brokerage to directly underwrite, trade, and sell securities. The company, which has operated primarily as a brokerage, now has the infrastructure to directly underwrite and supply products using its own capital.<\/p>\n
Kakao Pay Securities views this license as a decisive inflection point connecting its retail and IB businesses. The strategy is to maximize business synergies by combining IB capabilities with the massive retail user base it has accumulated over the years.<\/p>\n
The most closely watched area is the IPO underwriting and subscription business. With underwriting now permitted, the company has also secured the legal basis to offer public offering subscription services. Kakao Pay Securities plans to position IPO subscriptions as both a new user acquisition channel and a critical link bridging IB and retail operations.<\/p>\n
The investment product lineup will also expand significantly. Services targeting individual investors \u2014 including retail bond trading and domestic and international fractional share trading \u2014 will be strengthened. Simultaneously, the company can now pursue revenue diversification through proprietary capital, including expanding its sales and trading business, participating as an ETF liquidity provider, and broadening its bond portfolio management.<\/p>\n
Industry observers expect Kakao Pay Securities’ revenue structure to expand from brokerage-centric operations into corporate finance and proprietary investment. The move effectively marks the formal entry of a platform-based retail powerhouse into the traditional IB territory long dominated by established securities firms.<\/p>\n
“This investment dealing license provides the foundation for us to leap forward as a full-scale securities firm that directly underwrites and supplies products, moving beyond mere brokerage,” said Shin Ho-chul, CEO of Kakao Pay Securities. “We will create differentiated synergies unique to Kakao Pay Securities by combining our massive retail user base with IB capabilities.”<\/p>\n
Kakao Pay Securities has previously stood out in mobile securities services by leveraging Kakao Pay’s enormous user base. However, it had been confined to brokerage operations and unable to participate in traditional IB activities such as IPO underwriting or bond acquisition. With those restrictions now lifted, analysts say the platform-based securities firm has reached an inflection point that could elevate its business model to the next level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kakao Pay Securities is making a full-fledged push into the IPO underwriting business after securing an investment dealing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[622],"tags":[50904,820,19367,1036,827,9277,21662,44972,50903,15160,45408],"class_list":["post-98148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kakao","tag-brokerage","tag-etf","tag-investment-banking","tag-ipo","tag-kakao","tag-kakao-pay-securities","tag-liquidity-provider","tag-public-offering-subscription","tag-sales-and-trading","tag-shin-ho-chul","tag-south-koreas-financial-authorities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}