KG Inicis gets funding from NCsoft

The value of shares in KG Inicis, the nation’s No.1 electronic payments company, started to surge after 11 a.m. and finally closed 8 percent higher than the previous trading day at 26,750 won ($24.3).
KG Inicis announced that it will be issuing 45 billion won worth of nonguaranteed convertible bonds that will be sold to one of the leading game companies, NCsoft.
The maturity on the convertible bond is on Feb. 4, 2019.
This signaled NCsoft’s move into the financial technology industry, also known as fintech, by strengthening its cooperation with KG Inicis.
Fintech is not only the biggest fad in the financial industry but also a new business growth engine for many IT companies. IT companies, including the nation’s leading web portal company Naver and the leading social network service provider and web portal company Daum Kakao, have already jumped in the industry since the second half of last year.
NCsoft said it plans to expand into the next-generation payment market by merging the know-how of KG Inicis with NCsoft’s IT and security technology. It hopes that it will expand into other businesses including the new growth market of online-to-offline business.
KG Inicis said it will be using the funding acquired by investing in the development of a next-generation payment system both for online and offline, as well as in M&As of related companies.
KG Inicis has more than 100,000 commercial users and its transactions exceeded 10 trillion won last year.

BY LEE HO-JEONG, KIM YOUNG-HOON [ojlee82@joongang.co.kr]