KOR

KOREA CAPITAL MARKET INSTITUTE

KOR

Research Staff

Lee, Sungbok Senior Research Fellow Financial Services Industry

Research Field

Education: Ph.D. in Economics (December 2010), Texas AM University, College Station, TX, USA.; B.S. in Economics (February 2000), Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Korea

Professional Experience: Korea Capital Market Institute (October 2012 ~ ); Financial Supervisory Service, Korea (January 2000 ~ September 2012)

Analysis on Robo-advisor Performance in Korea Senior Research Fellow Lee, Sungbok / Dec. 06, 2021

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Financial innovation by fintech and its implications Senior Research Fellow Lee, Sungbok / Feb. 02, 2021

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Analysis of P2P Lending Markts and Implications Senior Research Fellow Lee, Sungbok / Feb. 09, 2018

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Big Data Trends in Global Capital Markets and Implications Senior Research Fellow Lee, Sungbok / Dec. 21, 2016

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Challenges for Cloud Transformation in the Capital Market of Korea / Apr. 16, 2024: As the digital economy advances and non-face-to-face financial transactions become the new normal, cloud transformation has shifted from being an option to a necessity. Overseas capital markets have actively embraced this shift towards cloud infrastructure. Despite this global trend, the Korean capital market has been relatively slow in adopting the cloud environment than other financial sectors, primarily due to its reliance on internally developed IT infrastructure and services to support non-face-to-face financial transactions since the early 2000s. In this regard, it is now critical for the Korean capital market to spur its transition to cloud systems. To facilitate this transformation and ensure transaction stability, it is vital to nurture managed service providers (MSPs) capable of navigating the structural complexity and systemic sensitivity inherent in the market’s IT infrastructure and services.

Permitting Broker-Dealers to Provide Money Transfer for Corporates: Issues and Challenges / Oct. 10, 2023: The recent discussion on whether to permit broker-dealers to conduct corporate money transfers has hardly stemmed from the argument that they should engage in payment services in the same way as commercial banks do. The discussion has been prompted from an economic perspective that broker-dealers should be able to provide companies with money transfer services permitted under the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act in a more convenient and less expensive manner. Under the context, concerns over rapid money movements, rising corporate lending rates and stability of the payment and settlement system have been raised. However, such concerns are somewhat exaggerated and can be adequately resolved through policy measures. In this respect, broker-dealers should strengthen competitiveness in terms of payment and settlement functions and financial investment services to achieve policy effects expected from the permission of corporate money transfer.

The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Finance and Relevant Challenges / Mar. 21, 2023: Amid growing interest in ChatGPT, the development and utilization of conversational AI services for financial consumers are expected to further accelerate in the financial sector. Particularly noteworthy is the emergence of the AI-powered virtual financial assistant (VFA) such as Erica launched by Bank of America. VFAs can support a wide range of financial services including account inquiry, remittance, budget tracking, bill management, credit card management, abnormal transaction warning, financial planning, investment advice, order processing, and transaction reporting. As a response to the rise of AI-powered services, Korea’s financial authorities established the AI Guideline for Finance in July 2021. They also unveiled the Plan to Promote the Use of AI in Finance and Build Trust in AI Services in August 2022 and have been carrying out relevant projects. Nevertheless, financial authorities and the financial industry need to do everything possible to ensure that the project to build a financial corpus, which began in the second half of 2022, can be carried out without a hitch. This is because the performance and risks of AI-powered financial services will be largely determined by the quality and quantity of the financial corpus.

Current State of Virtual Assets: Issuance and Trading / Aug. 10, 2021: Over the past eight years and three months, a total of 8,950 virtual assets have been registered with virtual asset exchanges in the world, of which almost 40% have ended up being deregistered. Around 90.5% of all deregistered virtual assets disappeared from the market within three years, whereas quite a few got deregistered after more than five years from their registration with exchanges. In dollar terms, the aggregate value of virtual assets hits a record high of $2,534.9 billion in May 2021, with the total volume of daily trading reaching as high as $601.6 billion in April 2021. However, the aggregate value plummeted to $1,437.2 billion and the total volume of daily trading also declined to $151.6 billion as of June 27 2021. What is notable is that a small number of virtual assets account for the majority of both the aggregate value of virtual assets and daily trading volume, respectively. Meanwhile, the daily trading volume of non-minable and pre-mined virtual assets has recently surpassed that of the minable whose prices have already set at a higher level, driving price fluctuations of virtual assets.