hankyoreh

South Korea's electronic securities transactions rose 20.6 percent in 2007 from a year earlier, mainly because people engaged in more online trading amid the market's bull run, the financial watchdog said Friday.

The volume of online securities transactions reached 5,809 trillion won (US$5.95 trillion) in 2007, compared with 4,818 trillion won a year earlier, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said.

"Online securities trading jumped as stock and futures transactions increased amid the market's rises," the FSS said in a statement. "People also put more money into funds." South Korea's share prices jumped more than 30 percent in 2007 compared with a year earlier as a steady inflow of investor money into South Korean stock funds provided ample liquidity to the market.

Meanwhile, the volume of online financial transactions at 18 local and foreign lenders, including Internet and mobile phone banking, rose 30.3 percent to 9,811 trillion won last year. The number of subscribers increased 4.5 percent on-quarter to 78 million as of the end of December, the FSS said.

SEOUL, April 4 (Yonhap)