Stock trading on the Internet is growing explosively in Korea, with the nation's five leading brokerage firms seeing their combined online trading exceeding 100 trillion won (about US$83 billion) so far.

According to officials of Daishin Securities, online trading of stocks through the Internet by five leading securities firms, including Daewoo Securities, Samsung Securities and Daishin Securities, hit 111.6 trillion won (US$93 billion) during the first seven months of this year.

It represents nearly a 24-fold increase from the same period of last year, and also shows a 5-fold growth compared with their total trading for the whole year of 1998.

Daishin Securities led the market with over 41 trillion won (US$34 billion) in cyber brokerage service.

It is followed by LG Securities with 23.5 trillion won (US$19 billion), Samsung Securities (18.2 trillion won or US$15 billion) and Hyundai Securities (13.9 trillion won or US$11.5 billion).

Daishin Securities's cyber trading accounted for about 35 percent of the company's total stock brokerage during the same period, which is compared with 7.8 percent for the month of January.

Market analysts attributed the sharp increase in online stock trading to competitive cuts in brokerage fees by domestic securities firms since mid-April as well we the recent bullish mood of the stock market. The brokerage fees have recently dropped by 0.1 percentage point.

They predicted that, as a whole, Internet stock trading would account for more than 30 percent of the entire stock trading in Korea by the year's end.

Such a rapid growth in online trading caused a great needs for expansion of system facility for online service as a result of heavy traffic to their online securities systems.

Actually, major Korean securities firms are now investing heavily in their system facilities as well as focusing on strengthening information services for their customers.

Industry observers predict that Cyber securities firms are expected to be established by local financial companies in the near future.

LG Group has recently decided to establish a Cyber securities firm in cooperation with E-Trade of the U.S. Good Morning Securities is also planning to set up a Cyber securities firm jointly with Charles Schwab of the U.S.