Korea Investment & Securities stakes its wealth business on a 1,000 trillion won pension forecast

Kim Do-hyun's forecast asks a lot of the pool. Getting from 600 trillion won to 1,000 trillion in three years means compounding at about 18.6% a year ^[21], or adding 400 trillion won of reserves ^[22]. Kim is the executive vice president who heads the retail client group, and he said the firm is concentrating firm-wide resources on pensions out of a sense of urgency ^[5]. "If we miss this, we have no future in the wealth management market," he said ^[19].

Kim's stated aim is No. 1 in a market "where we currently rank third in the brokerage industry" ^[6]. The two brokers ahead are Mirae Asset Securities and Samsung Securities, and counting banks puts the firm about 10th ^[11]. If those two rivals grow at the market's pace, the extra 400 trillion won leaves all three brokers in the order they hold now ^[22]. The company did not disclose its reserve balance or the size of the gap to the leaders.

So share has to move between providers, and so far it is moving out of banks ^[12]. Subscribers used to shift between banks and brokerages depending on market conditions ^[14]. The firm says it has seen no money moving back toward banks despite recent volatility in global stocks ^[13]. It puts that down to demand for ETF and target date fund products, which it believes has taken firm hold ^[15].

The bet is also a staffing decision. The firm has recruited a large number of outside specialists and reorganized its dedicated pension units ^[8]. The app has the cleanest figures: daily users are up 32% since the end of last year ^[17], and 20,000 more would hit this year's 350,000 target ^[18].

The case for keeping customers for decades starts with younger savers. New defined contribution subscribers joined at an average age of 36 in 2025, down from 40 in 2015, and attrition stands at 1.8% ^[1]. Choi Jong-jin, head of the pension innovation division, described customers who meet the firm at 36 and stay 30 years until retirement at 65 ^[2] (29, by subtraction ^[16]). "We will build a lifetime management system as a comprehensive platform that bundles and communicates pension management that had been fragmented by age and by scheme," he said ^[3].

The plan could play out differently in two ways. Mirae Asset and Samsung could take bank money at the same pace, leaving third place where it is. Or the pool could grow more slowly than 18.6% a year, and the fight for share would happen in a smaller market ^[21]. I think the bank outflow is the part of the plan with evidence behind it, and the app figures measure engagement, not reserves. The counter-case is that engagement comes first. On that view, a saver who opens the app daily is the one most likely to move a bank account across in kind. The firm's plan fails its own test if the app passes 350,000 daily users ^[10] while Korea Investment & Securities still ranks third among brokers by reserves ^[11].