"I Didn't Even Know I Was Paying Fees"... FSS Puts Brakes on Securities Firms' 'Opaque Paid Information' Services

Revenue earned by securities firms through paid content such as stock recommendations and supply-and-demand analysis amounted to tens of billions of won. However, fees were not properly disclosed to investors and could be mistaken for brokerage commissions, prompting financial authorities to take steps to improve the system.

The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) announced the findings of its review of securities firms' overall service operations on November 11.

According to the FSS, 12 securities firms operated paid stock information services that provide information such as stock recommendations and supply-and-demand analysis. The services had a total of 103,000 users, equivalent to 0.23% of all customers. In 2025, securities firms earned 67.1 billion won in fees from these services.

The services provide investment-related information through securities firms' own artificial intelligence (AI) systems or outside companies that have contracts with the firms. Investors can choose and subscribe to a specific channel from among various stock information channels. Securities firms charged fees of 0.05% to 0.25% per service or a flat fee based on the number of services used.

The problem was that fees were disclosed only before and immediately after customers signed up for a service. In addition, because the fees replaced the basic brokerage commission and were charged as a commission rate, some investors may not have realized they were paying for the service.

The FSS plans to require securities firms to disclose fees before customers sign up, regularly after signup, and on an as-needed basis after signup. Before signup, firms will provide a detailed comparison of the total fees payable before and after subscribing. After signup, they will regularly notify customers by text message or other means that they are using the service and of the applicable fee rate. They will also include the service fee structure on the screens of mobile trading systems (MTS) and home trading systems (HTS) where customers check their trading commissions.

In addition, securities firms that offer free trials and automatically switch customers to paid memberships after the trial ends without separately notifying them will be required to convert customers to paid memberships only if they have given explicit consent.

An FSS official said, "These improvements will help investors clearly understand service fees and reduce unnecessary costs. The FSS plans to work with the industry to develop detailed implementation measures, with the goal of completing the improvements in the first quarter of 2027, and to monitor securities firms' progress."

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