Registered adviser and notified quasi-adviser are different statuses

Many stock-picking and signal services in Korea hold only a notification, which carries no suitability duty, no duty to explain and no advertising rules on what they tell you. Knowing which status a service holds tells a trader what recourse exists if the recommendations go wrong. Source: https://www.fss.or.kr/fss/fib/fibInvtAdvisoryAply/guide01.do?menuNo=201164

Mediation committee decides within 60 days of referral

A trader can plan around a known timetable instead of an open-ended wait: roughly a month of direct handling, then a committee decision inside two more months, before any decision about going to court. Source: https://www.fss.or.kr/fss/main/contents.do?menuNo=200645

Accepted mediation carries the force of a court settlement

This turns a free complaint into an enforceable outcome, so a trader who wins mediation does not need to sue to be paid. The other edge of the same rule matters just as much: accepting closes the courtroom door, and letting the 20 days lapse counts as saying no. Source: https://www.fss.or.kr/fss/main/contents.do?menuNo=200646

FSC licenses the firm, FSS supervises it

A firm claiming to be FSS licensed is describing the arrangement loosely: the authorisation comes from the FSC, and the FSS examines and supervises. It also means permission is granted service by service, so a firm authorised for brokerage is not automatically permitted to manage your money on a discretionary basis. Source: https://www.fss.or.kr/eng/main/contents.do?menuNo=400014

Investor Alert List names foreign firms not registered in Korea

Several listed entries use prestigious Seoul office addresses such as the Gangnam Finance Center and the International Finance Center, so a smart-looking Korean address proves nothing. Checking a firm's name and website against this list takes a minute and complements the directory search. Source: https://www.fss.or.kr/fss/main/contents.do?menuNo=200210

Discretionary investment registration needs 1.5 billion KRW capital

The figures show how much thinner the capital behind an advisory firm can be than behind a firm that manages retail money on a discretionary basis, a difference of fifteen times. A trader can also match the licence unit a firm quotes against the investor type and asset range it is allowed to serve. Source: https://www.fss.or.kr/fss/fib/fibInvtAdvisoryAply/guide03.do?menuNo=201166

Discretionary registration requires two full-time investment managers

These are the qualified-people and internal-control tests behind a Korean registration, evidenced by certificates from the Korea Financial Investment Association and employment records. A firm that cannot say who its licensed managers are is describing something other than a registered discretionary business. Source: https://www.fss.or.kr/fss/fib/fibInvtAdvisoryAply/guide03.do?menuNo=201166

Some financial bodies sit outside FSS examination

If the counterparty falls in one of these groups, an FSS complaint is not the route and the clock starts again elsewhere. The financial investment list the FSS does handle includes securities companies, Korean branches of foreign securities companies, futures companies, asset managers and investment advisory firms. Source: https://www.fss.or.kr/fss/main/contents.do?menuNo=201179

FSS states 30 days for dispute complaints, 14 for others

This is the published expectation for a first answer and the exact ways to lodge a complaint, including the postal address for a trader who cannot use the Korean online form. Progress and outcome are checked online under My Complaints, and a written reply has to be requested from the case handler. Source: https://www.fss.or.kr/fss/main/contents.do?menuNo=201179

Onshore

FSSFinancial Supervisory Service

The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) is South Korea's integrated financial supervisor, set up on 2 January 1999, and it supervises securities companies, futures companies, asset managers and investment advisory firms. Licensing itself sits with the Financial Services Commission (FSC): the FSS reviews applications and then examines and supervises the firm, so a Korean broker is licensed by the FSC and supervised by the FSS. Two facts matter most to a trader: the FSS publishes a searchable Financial Institutions Directory of 1,067 supervised institutions in English, and a firm that only files a quasi-investment-advisory notification is a different animal from a registered investment adviser, with no suitability or disclosure duties applied to its recommendations. Complaints go to the FSS free of charge, and a dispute mediation decision that both sides accept has the same effect as a court settlement.

About Financial Supervisory Service

The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) was established on January 2, 1999, as Korea’s fully consolidated supervisory authority in accordance with the Act on the Establishment of Financial Supervisory Organizations (the “Establishment Act”), which the National Assembly passed on December 29, 1997. The Establishment Act established the FSS as a specially legislated quasi-government supervisory authority, with responsibility for financial supervision across the entire financial sector.

Background before Establishment

Before establishing the FSS, financial supervision in Korea took place through four separate sectoral authorities, while the Ministry of Finance had a significant overarching supervisory role:

Official Description

Contact Information

About and how to use Financial Supervisory Service

How to verify a licence

Start with the FSS Financial Institutions Directory in English at https://www.fss.or.kr/eng/sprvise/instt/list.do?menuNo=400029. It lists 1,067 FSS-supervised institutions and can be filtered by category, including Securities Companies, Futures Companies, Investment Advisory Companies and Asset Management Companies, then browsed A to Z or by page. Find the firm's exact legal name in the category it claims to operate in, and compare the telephone number and homepage shown against what the firm gave you. Second, open the FSS licence status board for financial investment business entities at https://www.fss.or.kr/fss/bbs/B0000101/list.do?menuNo=200129, which carries a summary table of dealing and brokerage licences by licence unit stated as current at 30 June 2026, so you can see which licence units a firm actually holds. The FSS also points consumers to its own financial consumer information portal FINE for the regulated-financial-company lookup and for the separate list of notified quasi-investment-advisory operators. Finally, check the FSS Investor Alert List at https://www.fss.or.kr/fss/main/contents.do?menuNo=200210, which names foreign companies reported to the FSS that are not registered or authorised with the FSC or the FSS.

How to complain

Complaints go to the FSS Financial Consumer Complaint Centre, by internet, post to 38 Yeoui-daero, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul 07321, or fax (02) 3145-8548 to 8549, with the call centre on 1332. The FSS states a processing period of 30 days for dispute mediation complaints and 14 days for other financial complaints, excluding time needed for document completion and fact-finding, and excluding Saturdays and public holidays. If the parties do not reach agreement within 30 days of the mediation request, the case is referred to the Financial Disputes Settlement Committee, which decides within 60 days of referral by majority vote. A mediation decision is notified immediately and becomes final if a party submits a signed acceptance within 20 days; both sides accepting gives it the same effect as a court settlement, enforceable without separate litigation. If either side refuses, the case can go to court, and the committee may grant litigation support where it finds the financial company's action clearly improper.

Jurisdiction and scope

The FSS covers financial business in South Korea across banking, small and medium finance, insurance, financial investment and other sectors. For a trader, the financial investment sector list is the relevant one: securities companies, Korean branches of foreign securities companies, futures companies, credit rating companies, asset management companies, investment advisory companies, trust companies, online small-amount investment brokers and others. The FSS also states which bodies are outside its examination remit and names the responsible ministry instead: post offices and telecommunications billing service providers (Ministry of Science and ICT), Korean Federation of Community Credit Cooperatives (Ministry of the Interior and Safety), transport mutual aid schemes (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport), moneylenders registered with a city or province (that local government), and multi-level and door-to-door sellers (Korea Fair Trade Commission).

What is protected

Protection here works mainly through conduct rules, examination and dispute mediation rather than a single payout fund named in the documents read. A registered investment adviser is a financial company subject to FSS examination, to the prohibition on improper solicitation, the duty to explain, and suitability and appropriateness principles, and to advertising rules and a duty to hand over a contract. A notified quasi-investment-advisory operator is not a financial company for these purposes, faces only limited FSS examination where reporting or data submission duties are breached, and is not subject to the solicitation rules, although it is barred from holding or taking custody of client money and securities, from lending money or securities, and from front running.

Using this regulator

Confirm the firm's exact legal name in the FSS Financial Institutions Directory under the category it claims, then check the licence unit summary table on the FSS licence status board before you fund an account. Ask which of the six financial investment services the firm is authorised for: dealing and brokerage are authorisations, while investment advisory and discretionary investment are registrations, and the minimum capital behind them differs by a factor of fifteen. If a service sells stock picks to a general audience, check whether it is a registered investment adviser or a notified quasi-investment-advisory operator, because one-to-one investment advice, sale of automated trading programs, taking money beyond the fee for stock recommendations and taking brokerage commissions all appear on the FSS reporting page for quasi-advisory operators. Never hand money or securities to an advisory service for safekeeping: custody is prohibited for quasi-advisory operators. Keep the 1332 call centre number and note the 20-day window to accept a mediation decision, since silence counts as refusal.

Good to know

No FSS fee schedule for supervisory levies was located on www.fss.or.kr, so no annual supervisory fee figure is stated. No investor compensation or guarantee scheme rules were found on the FSS domain: depositor protection in Korea is administered by a separate body, and nothing on the FSS pages read set out a per-client compensation cap, so no cap is reported. No retail leverage or margin cap was found on the FSS pages read. The regulated-financial-company lookup and the quasi-advisory operator lookup are served from the FSS FINE portal, which sits on a different host from www.fss.or.kr, so citations here use www.fss.or.kr pages only. Prior copies exist for three of the four corpus documents, all Internet Archive captures of 20 January 2026.

Key insights and tips

Directory of 1,067 supervised institutions searchable in English

Key

1067Financial Institutions Directory, category filter and result count

A trader outside Korea can confirm a broker's exact legal name, category and contact details in one place without reading Korean, and a firm that is absent from the category it claims to operate in is worth a direct question before any money moves.

The FSS Financial Institutions Directory lists 1,067 supervised institutions in English, filterable by category including Securities Companies, Futures Companies, Investment Advisory Companies and Asset Management Companies, with each entry showing the institution's name, homepage and telephone number.

Total 1067 case

QuotedRead the source

Futures Companies Securities Companies Asset Management Companies Credit Rating Companies Money Brokerage Companies Fund Rating Companies Investment Advisory Companies

QuotedRead the source

Official documents examined

Official document금융서비스 개선 건의방
Fetched Sep 2, 2026View source
Consumer notice전자금융거래제한대상자 지정취소 안내
Fetched Sep 2, 2026View source
Consumer notice채권소멸 사실공고
Fetched Sep 2, 2026View source
Consumer notice채권소멸절차 개시공고
Fetched Sep 2, 2026View source

Licensed Brokers

Brokers authorized and regulated by this authority

13 Licensed Brokers

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About this information

The details on this page about Financial Supervisory Service were compiled from the regulator’s own official documents, its website and other public sources, and are presented as neutral, factual guidance.

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FSSFinancial Supervisory Service

About Financial Supervisory Service