Customers, with the exception of qualified institutional investors, must deposit the customer margin with the member firms before placing an order. A member firm cannot submit the customers’ order unless the required margins are deposited. However, no margin deposit is necessary prior to trading for transactions between member firms and the KRX. In accordance with the rules and regulations of the KRX, member firms may deposit the member margins by noon of T+1 day.
The regulations of the KRX are designed to protect customers from cases of insolvency or financial instability among member firms. A customer‘s deposit for futures trading must be maintained on a separate account apart from the properties of member firms. To protect customers, the Futures Trading Act requires that member firms deposit customer margins with the Korea Securities Finance Corporation (KSFC) and customers’ securities (substitute securities) with the Korea Securities Depository (KSD).
The KRX monitors the balance of margins of all members daily and checks their financial
requirements. It also requires all
members to submit financial
statements quarterly.
Member firms of the KRX are required to contribute to the Joint Compensation Fund, which accumulates up to KRW 100 billion.
When a member firm fails to fulfill its obligations arising from futures
trading, the KRX compensates for the resulting losses in
accordance with the following sequential procedures:
In cases where a clearing member fails to fulfill its obligations following transactions in the futures market, the KRX compensates for the losses resulting from such failure by using
In addition to the Joint Compensation Fund, the KRX maintains a credit line of up to KRW
100 billion from a bank for any
emergencies that may occur on the
KRX market.