Korea Investment & Securities Co. said on the 6th that, despite significant uncertainty surrounding Samsung Securities' recent partnership with the global brokerage Interactive Brokers (IBKR), the deal has the potential to expand brokerage (commissioned trading) fees.
It kept its investment opinion at Buy and raised the target price to 155,000 won from 135,000 won. Samsung Securities' closing price in the previous trading day was 137,900 won.
Samsung Securities recently formed a partnership with IBKR and is piloting a service that allows foreigners to trade Korean stocks. Previously, foreigners needed a complicated process to trade Korean stocks, but through the partnership, IBKR users who are foreigners can trade Korean stocks through Samsung Securities.
As a result, Samsung Securities' share price jumped 28% on the 4th, far outpacing the securities industry index (KRX securities). By market capitalization, it increased by more than 1.7 trillion won.
Baek Dusan, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities Co., said, "It is early to discuss the future size and revenue structure of this market," but added, "If cash equities turnover by foreign individual investors accounts for 10% of existing foreign turnover, Samsung Securities is expected to achieve a meaningful share of orders in this foreign individual investor trading market."
Considering examples of commission rates for overseas stock trading by domestic retail investors and the current average per-trade fee at IBKR of $2.70, profitability is estimated to be lower than existing turnover.
Baek projected, "Although this is a somewhat conservative assumption, if this market opens, it has the potential to increase Samsung Securities' annual brokerage fees by 5.5%."
Baek explained that this issue is akin to individuals being able to easily trade U.S. stocks on domestic securities firms' apps.
In particular, Baek cited as the backdrop enabling this business model the launch of an integrated account for foreigners in 2017; the 2023 abolition of the obligation for financial investment firms to report transactions on that account immediately (T+2); designation as an innovative financial service; and changes to the Financial Investment Business Regulations, which together allowed overseas brokerages that do not conduct securities business domestically to provide Korean stock trading services through partnerships with domestic securities firms.
Additionally, as the attractiveness of the domestic stock market has improved centered on semiconductors, investment demand from foreign individual investors for domestic stocks has expanded. In line with this, Hana Securities in Aug. 2025 launched the first investment service using the integrated account for foreigners.
According to Korea Investment & Securities Co., this year Samsung, Yuanta, Meritz, Mirae Asset, Shinhan Investment, NH Investment, and KB Securities are preparing to launch integrated accounts for foreigners through partnerships with overseas brokerages.