Chairman Kwon Yong-won said he will be a leader in financial sector deregulation while running the Korea Financial Investment Association (Kofia) over the next three years.
He met reporters for the first time since getting elected as the next chairman of Kofia at the association’s temporary conference, where he obtained 68.1 percent of the vote from representatives of 241 member firms. It was the most among three candidates running for the post of Kofia chairman.
The conference took place on the 3rd floor of the Yeouido Financial Center in Yeouido, Seoul, on Jan. 25.
The former president of Kium Securities said he will attempt to turn the financial regulations to a “negative system” and deregulate them at the same time for the advancement of the capital markets.
He will also divide his time to the reform of the financial tax system to advance the capital market.
Chairman Kwon has many qualities to run the Kofia well, the strongest being his diverse experiences in the financial industry and the tenacity to solve the tough problems being touted as one of the financial leaders who know the workings of the financial authorities intimately.
He spent 15 years for the public service and over 20 odd years in the private sector as well accumulating very good knowledge in a number of key areas of the financial and the IT sectors so much so that he would know very well what he can do for Kofia as its chairman in the next three years.
He would not issue many promises, but try to find out what he can do to solve the problems for the association like the capital market’s responses to the 4th Industrial Revolution. He will ask for government support in the area of R&D seeking what the capital market can do to cope with the 4th Industrial Revolution as it would be too risky for the private sector to take on R&D on the new industrial age.
He would like to see the financial regulations upgraded like those in advanced nations to help the large securities firms to grow to be globally strong securities firms while smaller securities firms would be able to secure the segregated competitive edges from those of large securities firms to get away from the pressure of competing with those larger firms.
He jumped to the private sector putting an end to his 15 years with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in 2000.
He began his private sector career as the vice president of Daewoo Technology and went through various jobs with a number of the private firms ending with the CEO of Kium Investment, all affiliates of the Daewoo Group.
He took over Kium Securities as the CEO in 2009 and in the following 9 years, the securities firm now boasts 7 affiliates under President Kwon’s leadership.
Kofia is the sole self-regulatory organization (SRO) of the Korean financial industry.
Kofia approaches self-regulation as a service that should be responsive, flexible and in a market-friendly manner, rather than be rigid and heavily supervised. To ensure its ability to effectively conduct its role and function as an SRO, Kofia maintains the Self-Regulation Committee (SRC).
The SRC is responsible for Kofia’s overall self-regulation activities, such as making decisions for the establishment and revision of regulations, and applying penalties to members and executives. The committee is headed by the standing SRC Chairman.
Kofia’s main areas of self-regulation are:
1) Establishing rules and regulations;
2) reviewing standard agreements and advertisements;
3) conducting inspections of members;
4) registering and administering qualification exams for financial professionals; and
5) resolving disputes.
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New Chairman Kwon is shown with his predecessor Hwang Young-key at his inaugural ceremony on Jan. 25 at the association’s building in Yeouido, Seoul.(Photos:KOFIA)
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