[2026 Parliamentary Audit] Yuanta Unaware of "Single-Stock Leveraged" System Error for 10 Days

A computer system error involving single-stock leveraged products occurred, but it took the securities firm 10 days to become aware of it. It took even longer to report the incident to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). The FSS also does not track such incidents as a separate category, prompting calls to review not only financial firms' internal controls but also the supervisory authority's incident management system.

According to data submitted by the FSS to Park Seong-hoon of the People Power Party, a member of the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee representing Busan's Buk-gu B constituency, a program error involving single-stock leveraged products at Yuanta Securities Korea occurred on June 19. However, the company became aware of the incident only 10 days later, on June 29. It was not reported to the FSS until July 2. In other words, 13 days passed between the incident and the report to the supervisory authority.

Single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and exchange-traded notes (ETNs) track daily share-price movements of individual stocks, such as Samsung Electronics, at multiples such as 2x. They can amplify gains when share prices rise, but also magnify losses when they fall, making them high-risk financial products. Following the launch of the "Samsung-SK hynix leveraged" products, market volatility rose sharply, prompting repeated criticism that they had effectively turned the domestic stock market into a betting arena.

The FSS's incident classification and management practices also came under scrutiny. The FSS was found not to classify incidents involving single-stock leveraged products as a separate category in its electronic financial incident reporting system. As a result, the FSS searched incident records from the financial investment sector for keywords such as "single-stock" and "leverage" to identify relevant cases. This search identified one incident: the program error at Yuanta Securities Korea.

The FSS also responded to a request from Representative Park's office for information on inspections of mis-selling and advertising related to single-stock leveraged ETFs and ETNs, saying, "We will explain the supplementary investor protection measures prepared jointly with relevant agencies and review whether inspections are needed to address potential violations of laws and regulations or deficiencies in internal controls."

Representative Park said, "The fact that a financial company took 10 days to detect a computer system error involving a high-risk financial product is itself grounds for reviewing the adequacy of its internal controls." He added, "The Financial Supervisory Service must also thoroughly verify whether its incident management system by category and financial companies' procedures for detecting and reporting incidents are functioning properly."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.