SEOUL — South Korea’s top financial regulator announced Friday that it is speeding up new cash deposit rules for everyday investors who want to trade single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, moving the effective date up to July 31.
The Financial Services Commission stated that retail investors will be required to keep a minimum cash deposit of 30 million won — roughly $20,437 — in order to trade these types of investment products. The original timeline had called for the rule to take effect at some point in August, but regulators decided to accelerate it in response to concerns about market volatility.
The new requirements are designed to put the brakes on speculative trading activity among individual investors. Critics have pointed to the late May approval of domestic single-stock leveraged ETFs tied to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix as a contributing factor to increased instability in the market.
($1 = 1,467.9000 won)
