Samsung Securities restricted the use of some services on its mobile trading system (MTS) and elsewhere for 40 minutes before and after the regular session opened. As the market hit an all-time high and individual stock trading increased, the measure aimed to prevent possible transaction disruptions due to a surge in traffic. Users experienced inconvenience as some functions were suddenly blocked.
A Samsung Securities official said, "This temporary measure does not mean we will always control some services during market hours, but is an advance notice that we may act when traffic concentration is expected," and added, "Simply adding servers is not necessarily the answer. We always do our best to provide stable services."
On the 28th, Samsung Securities informed investors, "Depending on recent market conditions, there has been a phenomenon of customer logins increasing rapidly during certain times," and noted, "To ensure smooth access and fast processing, we will temporarily control some services."
The restricted service time was from 8:50 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Some services were unavailable, including account opening, issuance of balance certificates, and display of average purchase price on the MTS order screen. Samsung Securities added, "Despite these efforts (such as controlling operations), confirmation of executions may be somewhat delayed due to an increase in order executions, and we ask for your understanding."
Previously, other securities firms also restricted some services to prevent server failures. During the COVID-19 crisis, when stock transactions surged due to the "Donghak Ant Movement," some securities firms temporarily suspended certain services or functions to distribute traffic. The same applies in cases where a temporary increase in users is expected, such as large initial public offering subscriptions.
However, afterward, most major securities firms moved to expand servers and upgrade systems. Now, most securities firms distribute and add servers to prevent service disruptions or use auto-scaling functions to automatically adjust server capacity according to the number of users.
But Samsung Securities is responding by temporarily blocking less frequently used services instead of immediately expanding servers. Some have criticized the temporary step. A developer in the securities industry said, "This is not a fundamental solution; it is merely 'patchworking' servers by blocking specific services." There are also concerns that such temporary controls could further increase the risk of future system failures.
Samsung Securities said the function controls are a preemptive step to provide stable transaction services and that it is steadily managing its systems, including expanding servers. A Samsung Securities official said, "As the KOSPI index surpassed 4,000 points, there were many cases of concentrated logins at regular market open," and added, "Given the tight response window in a short time, it was the best way to prevent transaction errors."
In the first half of this year, Samsung Securities spent about 60.7 billion won on IT operations. That is up 10.6% from the same period last year (54.9 billion won).