The Financial Supervisory Service(FSS) on Monday launched a two-day special inspection on Samsung Securities which mistakenly paid out millions of shares to its employees as stock dividends.

The financial watchdog’s senior deputy governor, Won Seung-yeon, said in a news briefing on Monday that the incident appears to have resulted from a deficiency in the company’s internal control and management system. 

Under an employee stock ownership plan, Samsung Securities had originally planned to pay dividends of one-thousand "won" to its employees.

However, the brokerage paid dividends of one-thousand "shares" on Friday after a worker processed the wrong figure. Tens of employees at Samsung Securities were found to have sold the stocks they received.

Won said the incident occurred after the deciding officer approved the payment without checking or determining a mistake had been made. 

He said the company did not have a control system in place that could detect and block such mistakes and also did not have a confirmation and monitoring procedure for possible incidents. 

From Wednesday to next Thursday, the FSS will carry out an on-site inspection on Samsung Securities and immediately set straight any deficiencies found.