As the KOSPI breaks through 5,000 points and continues its high-altitude run, securities firms are struggling with traffic management due to a surge in volume. In this context, Samsung Securities, concerned about a spike in volume, restricted balance inquiries for 10 minutes before and after the regular session opened that day.
According to the financial investment industry on the 23rd, Samsung Securities limited the comprehensive balance inquiry service of its mobile trading system (MTS) mPOP for about 10 minutes from 8:59 a.m. to 9:10 a.m. that day. The measure applies from that day until further notice. As a result, investors experienced inconvenience during the early session when quick responses are needed, unable to check account balances and real-time rates of return.
Korea's stock market has seen an unprecedented boom since last year, with transaction value and order volume surging. As the KOSPI hits a record high day after day, retail investors' trading participation has expanded, and as a result, bottlenecks have repeatedly occurred as traffic crowds securities firms' IT systems at specific times around the market open.
In fact, cases of system failures have been piling up recently in the securities industry. On the 5th, a system failure occurred in the mobile trading system (MTS) of Korea Investment & Securities Co., causing access errors for about 20 minutes. The same day, some investors also had difficulty accessing the web trading system (WTS) of Naver Pay Securities.
The industry views Samsung Securities' measure as a preemptive response to prevent server failures. In practice, securities firms have managed IT loads by restricting services with relatively low usage at times when traffic spikes are expected, such as during initial public offering subscriptions or major events.
Samsung Securities said it was a pre-emptive step to enhance transaction stability. A Samsung Securities official said, "This measure enhanced transaction stability by pre-emptively limiting some functions that use a lot of traffic."
Some, however, expressed regret that the firm chose to restrict services instead of expanding IT infrastructure. While firms could permanently increase infrastructure capacity or temporarily scale it up during traffic surges, service limits keep recurring because of the heavy expense burden.
An official at a securities firm said, "Restricting some services instead of expanding system capacity is an unavoidable choice in terms of cost efficiency," but added, "It is regrettable in that the burden translates into customer inconvenience."
Meanwhile, Samsung Securities' selling, general and administrative expense, including IT expense, totaled 91.7 billion won on a cumulative basis for the third quarter of 2025, up 10.2% from 83.2 billion won a year earlier.