[Digital Today reporter Sangyeop Oh (오상엽)] South Korea's Fair Trade Commission is collecting views from major securities firms during its review of a business combination between Dunamu and Naver Financial. Concerns are being raised that entry barriers could rise if simple payments, digital-asset trading and an unlisted-share brokerage platform are combined.

The financial investment industry said on June 17 that the FTC recently asked 18 brokerages, including Korea Investment & Securities, Meritz Securities and Hana Securities, to submit opinions on the Dunamu-Naver Financial business combination by the end of this month.

The FTC is known to have asked whether an unlisted-share brokerage platform can be combined with a digital-asset exchange, and whether an integrated platform could create competitive advantages that brokerages would find hard to respond to.

This is seen as reflecting that Naver Pay operates Dunamu's unlisted-share trading platform, Securities Plus Unlisted, after acquiring it. The FTC 판단 is that combining unlisted-share brokerage, simple payments and digital-asset trading functions within a single platform could affect the competitive environment for existing brokerages and fintech companies.

The FTC also requested views on whether combining Naver's platform data with Dunamu's transaction data could create competitive advantages that brokerages would find difficult to copy or counter.

The questions also included stablecoins. The FTC is reported to have asked which business areas stablecoin issuance could expand into and whether brokerages plan to form related consortia.

It is also checking whether, if stablecoins are institutionalised and Naver and Dunamu cooperate, constraints could emerge on other companies' issuance and distribution of stablecoins.

The securities industry sees that combining the top simple-payment operator with the top operator in digital-asset and unlisted-share trading could amplify customer lock-in effects.

It says that if platform-based customer inflows, payment networks, investment data and marketing channels are combined, latecomers or mid-tier players could struggle to compete on the same terms.

Some brokerages also see it as difficult to rule out the possibility that exposure of investment information or product recommendations within the Naver ecosystem could be biased toward in-house services. They say that if an integrated platform is launched, existing financial investment firms could find it hard to compete in terms of customer touchpoints and data.

Similar concerns are emerging in the digital-asset industry. One view is that if Dunamu combines with Naver, the market-share gap with other digital-asset exchanges could become structurally entrenched.

Critics say the impact on market competition and consumer choice should be examined if the user base, payment networks and marketing channels are combined.

Naver, Naver Financial and Dunamu held board meetings in November last year and approved a plan to bring Dunamu into the affiliate group through a comprehensive stock swap. The FTC then began reviewing the companies' merger filing, and the review is currently under way.

The FTC plans to decide whether to approve the business combination, referring to the results of this opinion-gathering.

In March, the FTC also asked about 10 brokerages for stakeholder views to assess the impact on the securities industry of Mirae Asset Consulting's acquisition of shares in Korbit.

At the time, brokerages are known to have submitted opinions calling for clear regulatory guidelines on the principle of separating finance and digital-asset businesses.

The market sees this merger review as a case that could help gauge future standards for combinations among finance, platform and digital-asset businesses.

In particular, evaluations say that if unlisted shares, stablecoins, simple payments and digital-asset trading are linked on one platform, competitive restrictions and consumer benefits should be weighed together.