Samsung Securities said on the 6th that it launched, for the first time in the industry, a service for paying and managing advance-payment performance-based restricted stock awards (RSA) through Samsung Securities At Work, a dedicated platform for stock compensation.
An RSA is a performance compensation program in which a company pays stock to employees in advance and determines the value of the reward based on whether performance and responsibilities are fulfilled over a set period. Unlike cash bonuses, it is a stock-based compensation method designed for employees to participate directly in the company's mid- to long-term growth and performance.
Unlike a restricted stock unit (RSU), which pays stock after a certain period of service or the achievement of performance, an RSA differs in that the stock is paid first and the reward is then finalized based on performance.
In Korea, the introduction and execution of RSAs had been constrained due to a lack of financial infrastructure capable of stably operating complex requirements arising from the advance-payment stock structure, such as mandatory holding periods, sale restrictions, and performance condition management.
To resolve these institutional and system limitations, Samsung Securities built an RSA-dedicated management account function into the Samsung Securities AT WORK platform. The account directly reflects mandatory holding periods and sale restriction conditions in its structure for advance-paid stock, enabling systematic control of condition changes that may occur in the post-grant management process. It also provides a management framework that can ease the burden of executive disclosures.
Samsung Securities stably executed an RSA performance compensation program based on treasury shares for 30,000 people on the 9th of last month. It is also providing disclosure support monitoring services for the company's executives.
Park Kyung-hee, head of the WM division at Samsung Securities, said, "Samsung Securities AT WORK is a platform that can practically implement corporations' performance compensation systems beyond employee account management services," adding, "the biggest differentiator is that we completed a structure that, for the first time in Korea, enables RSA payment and management."
Samsung Securities said it plans to use the launch of this RSA service as a springboard to continuously expand customized platform functions that meet corporations' needs for performance compensation and employees' asset management.