Korea Extends Won Trading Hours With Eye on Inflows: QuickTake

South Korea will kick off a test run to extend the trading hours of its currency on Feb. 6 to improve the market’s accessibility and ultimately attract more inflows. The initiative is a step toward enabling investors to trade the won around the clock, and may eventually boost the case for the nation’s stocks and bonds to be added to global indexes. By lengthening the hours, Seoul is also signaling an increased openness to the capital flows and volatility that it had tried to shield its economy from in the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis.

Here’s what to know about the upcoming changes and the potential implications of the shift: