The Financial Services Commission (FSC) headquarters in central Seoul / Courtesy of FSC

The Korean stock market's accessibility to foreign investors has improved significantly since the scrapping last December of a mandatory requirement for foreign investors to register their identities before making investments in Korea, the top financial regulator said Friday.

According to the numbers revealed earlier in the day by the Financial Services Commission (FSC), a total of 1,432 accounts held by foreign investors have been opened during the past six months. The period dates from Dec. 15 last year, when the Korean financial regulator formally abolished the foreign investor registration system, until June 12 this year.

Specifically, among the 1,432 accounts opened, 1,216 were held by institutional investors, while 216 were individual accounts. This shows the keenness of foreign institutional investors, who tend to make investments at a larger scale than retail investors, to take advantage of Korea's improved market accessibility.

The positive impact of attracting more foreign investors to the Korean stock market, resulting from the abolition of the registration requirement, is evident in the surge in the average number of account openings each month.

The average monthly number of account openings by foreign investors has been standing at around 300 to 400 in recent months, greatly surpassing last year's monthly average of 105.

With the country's registration requirement for foreign investors abolished after 30 years under the system, foreign investors, both institutional and retail investors, can now instead use their Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) and passport numbers. The LEI is a globally standardized form of identification adopted in G20 countries in 2011.

"Following the abolition of the foreign investor registration system, the convenience of opening accounts for foreign investors has led to a significant increase in the number of new accounts opened by them," FSC Vice Chairman Kim So-young said, vowing to continue to closely monitor market conditions for further enhancement of market accessibility.

The financial authorities said that they have been actively gathering market feedback from foreign investors and their agents to devise and implement further remedial measures for some of the inconveniences raised since the system's abolition.

As to the Korean market's response to the abolition of the foreign investor registration system, an official from the top financial regulator told The Korea Times that the domestic investment sector has responded positively to the change.

"From the perspective of domestic investors, there are basically no increased inconveniences passed on to them with the system change. Accordingly, there's no reason for them to view the abolishment of the previous system negatively. Rather, there has been positive feedback due to expectations of market expansion," the FSC official said on Friday.

The financial authorities and related institutions plan to continue promoting and closely communicating to enhance the Korean capital market's accessibility to foreign investors.