Rep. Kim Jong-yang plans a law change requiring comprehension checks and brokerage verification, while KOFIA’s revamped single-stock leveraged and inverse ETF course still allows some test retakes without meaningful rewatching.
South Korea is tightening pre-trade education for single-stock leveraged and inverse ETFs, but criticism persists that investors can still enter the products without fully understanding the risks. Representative Kim Jong-yang of the ruling People Power Party plans to amend the Financial Consumer Protection Act to require the Financial Services Commission to mandate comprehension testing in pre-investment education and require securities firms to verify both course completion and test results before allowing trades. The debate intensified after data Kim obtained from the Korea Financial Investment Association showed that, as of July 31, the Financial Investment Education Institute had not separately conducted comprehension assessments, follow-up surveys, or effectiveness studies for the leveraged ETF program, and could not compile viewing-pattern data because no separate system existed. KOFIA later revamped the advanced course on the 30th following FSC supplementary measures announced on the 16th, adding chapter-by-chapter quizzes and stricter pass rules, but a loophole remains because investors sent back to re-study after repeated failures can skip video segments and return to the test. Critics say simple quizzes may still be insufficient to teach risks such as negative compounding.