NH and K bank will pay you to open a stock trading account

Advertisement for NH Investment & Securities' Namuh stock account. [K BANK]

K bank and NH Investment & Securities are offering cash rewards to get more people to open stock trading accounts.

The first 30,000 people to open a Namuh account, which is provided by NH Investment & Securities and marketed by K bank, by Oct. 4 will receive $20 in cash. For the same period, currency exchange commissions will be waived for everyone who opens an NH stock account.

Discounts will be offered on foreign stock transactions, lowering fees to a fixed 0.09 percent from the 0.25 percent to 0.4 percent for the processing of stock trades in international markets.

Customers who already have a stock account through K bank will also receive cash rewards. The online bank said it will give $2 every month for active accounts, for one year after the account was first opened.

This means if a customer opened a stock account in September and traded stocks every month for a full year, they would receive $44 in cash — the $20 bonus plus the $2 monthly bonus.

International stocks are becoming popular investments for local retail investors. Korea investors traded in a total of $121 billion of international stocks this year through Sept. 14, according to data by the Korea Securities Depository, which is triple the total transaction volume for last year.

BY KANG JAE-EUN [kang.jaeeun@joongang.co.kr]