Yonhap Infomax
Overview
Yonhap Infomax (연합인포맥스) is Korea's leading financial information terminal service operated by Yonhap News (연합뉴스). It provides real-time quotes, news, and analytical tools for all asset classes in the financial markets—including bonds, foreign exchange, equities, derivatives, and commodities—on a single terminal, and is often compared to a 'Korean version of the Bloomberg Terminal.' Its main customers are dealers and researchers at financial institutions such as banks, securities firms, insurers, and asset management companies, as well as practitioners at pension funds and public institutions.
Key Details
History and Nature
Yonhap News entered the financial information business in the early 1990s based on the news infrastructure it had built as a news agency, and later developed Yonhap Infomax into a specialized financial information brand. Having both a news agency's news supply network and a market data collection network at the same time is cited as the service's core competitiveness. Combining the speed of breaking news delivery with communication functions among market participants, it serves as infrastructure for dealing and research work beyond simple quote lookup.
Provided Information
- Real-time quotes: Bonds such as government bonds, corporate bonds, and special bonds; short-term financial instruments such as call, CP, and CD; KRW/USD exchange rates and offshore NDF; stocks and futures/options; interest rate swaps (IRS); commodity prices
- News: Market breaking news based on Yonhap News's reporting network, financial authority policy trends, and bond issuance and demand forecast information
- Analytical tools: Yield curves, spread and credit spread analysis, charts, and historical time-series data lookup
- Communication: Dealer messenger and order board, channel-based information exchange
- Value-added data services: Quote DB provision and research report distribution
Usage Ecosystem
Bond dealers and fund managers use it to identify quotes and as reference material for executions; researchers use it for market data and news archives; corporate treasury staff use it to understand corporate bond issuance terms. Regulatory authorities and research institutions also often view it for market monitoring, establishing it as a de facto standard information channel for Korea's bond and short-term financial markets.
Competitive Landscape
While Bloomberg and LSEG (formerly Reuters) are strong in the global market, in Korea Yonhap Infomax competes with Edaily Market Point, Hankyung Market, and Koscom's securities information services. Its differentiation lies in localization tailored to Korea's market-specific bond quoting practices and demand for policy news.
Latest Trends
In 2024–2025, the financial information services market is being reorganized in three directions. First, as discussions on electronic bond trading and alternative trading systems (ATS) expand, the accuracy and low latency of real-time quote data have become important. Second, with the increase in news summarization and market commentary automation using generative AI and API-based data distribution, business models are expanding from terminal-centric to data-subscription-centric. Third, support for web, mobile, and cloud environments and growing demand for non-traditional data such as ESG and alternative data are underway. As foreign investment in Korean bonds and discussions on KRW internationalization continue, demand for English-language information is also gradually increasing.
Related Topics
- [[Yonhap News]]
- [[Bloomberg Terminal]]
- [[Bond Market]]
- [[Financial Information Terminal]]
- [[Koscom]]