Changes at the top in the Korean market where the two main providers were split by only 0.4 percentage points.

Some KRW74 trillion (US$60.5 billion) was gathered from 17,777 structured products (excluding flow- and leverage) in 2022 – down 16% by sales from the previous year (2021: KRW88.2 trillion from 19,653 products).

Average volumes stood at KRW4.2m per product (2021: KRW4.5m).

Approximately 85% of total sales was gathered from 13,481 products targeted at retail investors with the remaining volumes coming from private placements.

Twenty-five issuer groups – mainly local securities houses – were active during the year (2021: 24).

Hana Financial was the number one issuer with a 10.7% share of the market – up 2.9% from the prior year when it finished seventh. The company collected KRW7.9 trillion from 1,456 products with the bulk of its volumes, at KRW3.1 trillion and KRW2.4 trillion, respectively, coming from structures linked to the interest rates or a basket of indices.

It’s the first time Hana topped the issuers table in South Korea. Its previous high was third place in 2013, according to SRP data.

Meritz Securities, in second place, also increased its market share: from 8.8% in 2021 to 10.3% in 2022. The firm achieved sales of KRW7.6 trillion from 1,122 products that included Meritz ELB 389, which with sales of KRW1.6 trillion was the best-selling Korean product of the year. The bond is linked to the share of Samsung Electronics and returns minimum 106.8811% after one-year.

Prior to 2022, Meritz had never made the Korean top five.

Mirae Asset and Shinhan Financial – in third place and fourth place – both saw a year-on-year (YoY) decline in market share. The former gathered sales of KRW6.5 trillion from 1,647 products that were almost exclusively equity-linked while Shinhan sold 1,663 products worth KRW6 trillion – a third of which was invested in interest-linked structures.

Korea Investment completed the top five with a 7.8% market share – down 2.7% YoY. It accumulated sales of KRW5.8 trillion from 1,339 products, which again were mostly equity-linked.

Kiwoom’s New Global 100tr Club ELS 417 achieved the highest performance. The one-year autocall, linked to the shares of Tesla and Nvidia, knocked out after five months returning 112.08% of the nominal invested. Goldman Sachs International was the derivatives counterparty.