Kiwoom Securities Brand Guidelines: Kiwoom.com in 2000, the Hero Apps & a Ballpark Name

A broker built for the screen.

Kiwoom Securities was founded in Seoul on 31 January 2000 under the name Kiwoom.com Securities, Korean Wikipedia says. English Wikipedia gives the same date and names Daou Technology as the parent company, and Korean Wikipedia lists Daou Technology as the largest shareholder. Its core businesses, in Korean Wikipedia’s summary, are brokerage for individual investors, trading in shares, bonds and commercial paper, fund sales and securities trading over the internet.

The company’s own English timeline sets out its early services. It dates the start of its stock investment service to May 2000, stock trading by mobile device to September 2000, and its first full home trading system, called Hero, to April 2001. A mobile service, “m Hero,” followed in November 2002, and a new version, Hero 3, in April 2004.

Kiwoom listed on the KOSDAQ market on 23 April 2004, according to both Wikipedia editions, and moved to the main KOSPI market in 2009; the company’s timeline dates that transfer to 3 August 2009. On 31 January 2006, its sixth anniversary, the timeline records the proclamation of a new corporate identity, and on 25 May 2007 the firm dropped the “.com” and became Kiwoom Securities Co., Ltd. Korean Wikipedia dates the rename to May 2007 as well.

The years that followed brought new markets and companies. The timeline lists cross-border trading in Hong Kong securities from May 2007, a smartphone app, Hero S, in September 2010, an iPad app, Hero T, in January 2011, and Kiwoom Securities Indonesia, which began business in July 2011. Kiwoom Savings Bank joined the group in 2013 after an acquisition agreed in 2012, Woori Asset Management was acquired in May 2014, and in August 2014 the head office moved to the Kiwoom Finance Square building.

Hero, Hero S and Hero S#.

Kiwoom’s trading software carries one name. Korean Wikipedia describes 영웅문 (Yeongungmun), rendered “Hero” in the company’s English timeline, as Kiwoom’s internet trading program: a Windows program for the PC that is also offered as Android and iPhone apps. The family has grown by suffix. Hero 4 arrived in March 2015, and the futures and world-markets apps Hero SF and Hero SW were launched in 2012 and 2011, the timeline says.

The newest member is Hero S#. iNews24 reported on 19 August 2022 that Kiwoom had launched it officially after a trial version offered from May: a next-generation mobile trading app that puts account opening, Korean and overseas shares, financial products, AI asset management and MyData services in one app. Its features included a combined watchlist, a global market board, real-time condition search, charts at the level of the PC software and a dark-mode skin; indicators written in the PC programs Hero 4 and Hero G can be carried into the app. At that launch Kiwoom said it had held first place in Korean stock-market share for 17 years in a row; its English website in 2026 calls the company “South Korea’s Leader for 21 consecutive years.” Both are the company’s own claims.

The brand also reaches well beyond the app. In January 2019 the Seoul baseball club formerly called the Nexen Heroes unveiled a new name, the Kiwoom Heroes, with a new uniform and logo, after signing a five-year sponsorship deal with Kiwoom in November 2018, Yonhap reported. The club kept its burgundy and white, and its emblem places the word “Kiwoom” across a baseball. The Heroes play at Gocheok Sky Dome in western Seoul.

In August 2026 Kiwoom introduced an official character, Kiwooma (키우마), based on a horse, The Fact reported in October 2026. The company presents it as a helper that carries customers quickly through the world of investing. Since 2 October 2026 Kiwooma has guided users of a conversational AI search inside Hero S#, and it appeared on limited-edition stickers for Heroes fans at a Kiwoom Partner Day at Gocheok Sky Dome in August.

How Korean brokers present themselves.

Korean securities firms present themselves in two languages at once. Their names usually appear in Hangul and in English side by side, on websites, in apps and on annual reports, and many of the larger houses carry the name of a wider financial group — Mirae Asset, Samsung, NH, KB or Hanwha — in front of the word for securities. Their wordmarks tend to rely on a single strong colour, and orange, blue, yellow and green all appear across the sector.

Most of a broker’s daily contact with customers now happens on screens. The industry has its own shorthand for them: an MTS, or mobile trading system, is the phone app, and an HTS, or home trading system, is the desktop program that came before it. The apps are named products in their own right. Samsung Securities calls its app mPOP, and Mirae Asset Securities renamed its M-STOCK app MAPS in 2026, describing the change as a shift from order-taking towards portfolio advice.

Beyond the trading screens, the websites follow a familiar pattern. Pages for overseas shares sit next to pages for retirement pensions; The Korea Herald noted in 2026 that Korean retail investors have expanded their investments in overseas markets. Each large house also runs a research centre whose analyst reports feed the apps, the websites and the firm’s institutional clients, and some now present that research with AI tools.

The formal record lives in reports. Listed brokers publish annual reports and, increasingly, sustainability or integrated reports in Korean and English, alongside disclosures to the Financial Supervisory Service. For a design reader these documents, more than any advertising, show how each firm sets its type, colour and tables when it speaks to shareholders and regulators.

An online broker inside a technology group.

Kiwoom remains part of a wider group. The Korea Times referred to it in May 2023 as part of the Daou Kiwoom Group, and The Fact used the same group name in October 2026. Korean Wikipedia lists subsidiaries including Kiwoom Asset Management, Kiwoom Private Equity, Kiwoom Savings Bank, Kiwoom Capital and Kiwoom Investment.

The company’s timeline traces its widening licences. It records designation as a comprehensive financial investment business entity in April 2022, a MyData business licence in September 2021, a corporate value-up plan announced in May 2024 and authorisation for general foreign exchange services in July 2024. In May 2025 it lists the establishment of Kiwoom Securities (USA) Inc. and Kiwoom Securities Holdings (USA) Inc., and in November 2025 a licence for short-term financing.

For a design guide, Kiwoom Securities shows how a broker born online can make its software the brand, naming every trading program after one word and later lending that name to a baseball club. Compare NH Investment & Securities, whose Namuh app grew out of a long line of older brokers, and Mirae Asset. For this guide we use a deep plum, a soft rose and a muted gold with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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