Frontline sales staff, not chief executives or owners, were the highest-paid individuals at South Korean securities firms in the first half as a strong stock market rally drove up brokerage commissions and wealth-management income. Yuanta Securities retail executive director Lee Jong-seok led the industry with ₩22.721 billion in first-half pay, almost entirely from bonuses, far exceeding the ₩929 million received by CEO Luo Zhi-feng. Similar patterns appeared across the sector, with private bankers serving high-net-worth clients and S&T (sales and trading) professionals posting outsized compensation tied to trading results, stock lending, ETF liquidity provision, and derivatives activity. The half-year disclosures suggest a familiar boom-time pattern in securities markets, where client-facing revenue generators can out-earn top executives, though industry observers said the gap widened especially sharply in the first half of this year.