Average daily securities settlements in South Korea fell more than 16% from the previous quarter in the third quarter, as the local stock market entered a correction and bond trading slowed. Trading value on the main stock market plunged more than 30% as the KOSPI stalled, while settlements of short-term corporate bonds between institutions dropped steeply amid wider interest rate swings. Compared with a year earlier, however, settlements still grew nearly 30% as the overall trading base expanded.
Average daily securities settlements through the Korea Securities Depository (KSD) totaled 35.409 trillion won ($24.7 billion) in the third quarter of 2026, the depository said on the 12th. That was down 16.5% from 42.396 trillion won in the previous quarter, which marked a record high. The figure was up 29.4% from 27.355 trillion won a year earlier.
By asset class, both stock and bond settlements shrank from the prior quarter. Stock settlements averaged 8.78 trillion won a day in the third quarter, down 12.4% from 10.021 trillion won in the second quarter. Against 2.258 trillion won a year earlier, however, the figure was up 288.9%. Bond settlements averaged 26.629 trillion won a day, down 17.7% from 32.375 trillion won in the previous quarter and up just 6.1% from 25.097 trillion won a year earlier.
By market, the slowdown was most pronounced on the main stock exchange. Average daily settlements on the exchange-traded stock market came to 4.097 trillion won, down 6.6% from the previous quarter. Trading value on the exchange-traded stock market fell to 77.28 trillion won, a 34.1% plunge from 117.231 trillion won in the second quarter. The netting ratio, or the share of payments offset after trades were matched, stood at 94.7%. Off-exchange stock settlements by institutional investors averaged 4.683 trillion won a day, down 16.9% from the prior quarter, while trading value fell 26.4% to 45.366 trillion won.
In the bond market, demand for short-term funding among institutions weakened sharply. Settlements of exchange-traded bonds averaged 2.741 trillion won a day, down 6.2% from the previous quarter, while bond settlements by institutional investors averaged 23.889 trillion won, down 18.9%. By category, bond settlements fell 11.3% to 12.53 trillion won, while settlements of certificates of deposit (CDs) and commercial paper (CP) edged up 0.1% to 4.815 trillion won. Settlements of short-term corporate bonds with maturities of one year or less fell 37.8% to 6.544 trillion won from 10.512 trillion won in the previous quarter.
Among institutional settlements of general bonds, government bonds accounted for more than half of that category at 6.394 trillion won, or 51.0%. Financial debentures followed at 3.573 trillion won, or 28.5%, ahead of special-purpose bonds at 911 billion won, or 7.3%, monetary stabilization bonds at 864 billion won, or 6.9%, and corporate bonds at 422 billion won, or 3.4%.