By Stephanie Yang, Yoonjung Seo, CNNSeoul (CNN) — Jennifer Ke, a 35-year-old working in operations at a cryptocurrency firm, never paid much attention to Taiwan’s stock market. Meanwhile, in South Korea, retail investors are borrowing money at record levels to purchase stocks, data from the Korea Financial Investment Association showed. But the popularity of stock trading has exploded this year as a quicker means to close the gap. He had heard of other people who had made millions off the stock market, but he wanted to start small. Over the past few years, South Korea has made regulatory changes to court foreign investors and boost its domestic stock market.