Solving the problem with ActiveX is a prerequisite if Korea is to facilitate online commerce and banking

April 7, 2014 Leave a comment

Time to deep six ActiveX

Mar 24,2014

Authentication certificates for online trading were battered at a rare public forum Thursday at the Blue House presided over by President Park Geun-hye. Lee Seoung-cheol, deputy chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries, called the compulsory application of ActiveX – Microsoft’s security software needed for online transactions – a typical example of “Galapagos regulations.” Park stepped into the discussion and called for a drastic resolution of the software’s cumbersome requirements that make it difficult even for Chinese TV fans to buy the coat a famous Korean actress wore in the popular drama “My Love From the Star.” 

Complaints about online certificates and ActiveX have reached a peak. According to an FKI survey, 78.6 percent of Koreans demanded that ActiveX be scrapped, while 84.1 percent wanted a separate and safe system for online payments.

The controversy is not new. While proponents regarded it as the most effective tool for ensuring security, opponents denounced it as an impediment to online transactions. In the meantime, people’s inconvenience increased by leaps and bounds, particularly since the massive leaks of customer information at three major credit card companies, which led to more complicated – and bothersome – online payment procedures.

Solving the problem with ActiveX is a prerequisite if Korea is to facilitate online commerce and banking. A security tool of Microsoft, it provides optimal security in Korea predominantly based on Internet Explorer. Customers can’t even access the Internet if they don’t install ActiveX. Given the more frequent hackings that exploit such an atmosphere, it’s urgent to develop an effective and convenient authentication system. The government needs to drastically relax the authentication process. Paypal, a world-famous e-commerce business, was created by eBay. The marvelous success of Alibaba.com, the world’s biggest online shopping company in China, was possible thanks to Paypal.

The government plans to come up with a revision of online transaction procedures as early as the first half of the year. But financial institutions and companies, too, need to ease their blind adherence to overly restrictive online certificates, including ActiveX. Otherwise, any dream of the birth of a world-famous online trading company in Korea is distant indeed.

JoongAng Ilbo, March 24, Page 30

 

Filed under Macro Trends, TMT Trends

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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