2030 Foreign individual investors will be captured... Kiwoom Securities, Face-to-face showdown with Toss using simplified MTS

Kiwoom Securities begins to counterattack Toss Securities with a new mobile trading system (MTS) targeting the 'Seo-hak Ants' in their 20s and 30s. To regain the market share of young overseas stock investors lost to Toss, they plan to launch a simplified version of ‘Hero Moon S#’, which significantly streamlines the User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX), next month.

According to the financial investment industry on the 25th, Kiwoom Securities plans to introduce a new MTS version that incorporates Toss Securities-style simple and intuitive UI into the existing Hero Moon S#. The core idea is to lower the entry barrier by designing it so that within the existing app, users can switch between the ‘basic version’ and ‘simple version’ as per their choice, instead of a download method.

The new simple MTS will minimize complex charts and menus, and strengthen community functions such as stock discussion rooms. The strategy is to encourage existing investors to gradually utilize Hero Moon's advanced features beyond just simple order functions.

One of the reasons Kiwoom Securities has embarked on this 'app redesign' is the rapid growth of Toss Securities. Having maintained a leading position in the overseas stock trading market, Kiwoom was recently troubled as Toss, with its user-friendly app, captured a large number of new 2030 customers. In fact, this year’s first-quarter foreign securities commission income saw Toss Securities (86.7 billion KRW) surpassing Kiwoom Securities (67.4 billion KRW).

In response, Kiwoom has formed a separate overseas stock task force (TF) and prepared countermeasures, and even resumed brand advertising after five years. Last March, they have been pursuing a brand image renewal targeting the 2030 generation with actress Go Min-si as their model.

A securities industry official explained, “Securing app competitiveness is critical in customer acquisition because once accustomed to an MTS, users do not easily switch to another app,” adding, “Kiwoom is employing a strategy of selection and concentration to capture young investors beyond its existing middle-aged customer base.”

With Kiwoom's decisive move to capture both simplicity and functionality, attention is on what results their competition with Toss Securities will lead to.