개인인 전문투자자 및 전문금융소비자의 분류기준과 보호수준에 대한 고찰

In Hong Kong, from the experience of the 2008 global financial crisis, critical issues were raised on the individual professional investors. Countless individual investors, without expertise in financial products, had been categorized as professional investors and bought highly complex financial products like as Minibond from the Lehman Brothers, etc. However, various investor protection systems were exempted with such investors because they were categorized as professional investor. After that, Hong Kong regulatory authority reformed the professional investor system and does not permit investor protection exemption related to individual investor anymore. In contrast, Korea adopted the individual professional investor system with the newly enacted “Financial Investment Services and Capital Market Act of 2009” and permitted financial companies exemption from the individual investor protection system when investors are classified as professional ones. Recently, with the Optimus Private Fund scandal, the Financial Dispute Settlement Committee of the FSS of Korea has differentiated protection levels between general investors and professional investors, and more interests have been focused on the individual investor protection system. In these backgrounds, this article compares relevant foreign systems on investor categorization and studies introduction, changes and necessities of improvement for the Korean individual professional investor system.