"‘Ontong Daejeon’ Popularity Leads to Early Cashback Depletion... City Considers Additional Support"

Provided by Daejeon City

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Daejeon City’s local currency ‘Ontong (On通) Daejeon,’ launched last month, is gaining popularity, and the 15% cashback launch event is expected to end earlier than initially planned. The city is reportedly considering options such as continuing to provide the same cashback until the end of next month or maintaining a maximum 10% cashback.

According to the city on the 30th, Ontong Daejeon had 216,092 subscribers and a total usage amount of 48.48 billion KRW within one month (by the 14th of this month) since its launch on the 14th of last month. During this period, the total recharge amount was 74.42 billion KRW, averaging 2.26 billion KRW per day, with an average recharge of 344,390 KRW per person on the Ontong Daejeon card.

It was also confirmed that Ontong Daejeon was mainly used at general restaurants and academies. Over the past month, the payment amount by usage location showed that general restaurants accounted for the largest share with 9.48 billion KRW (about 360,000 transactions). Additionally, 7.38 billion KRW was spent at academies.

This suggests that users focused on essential consumption items and high-spending categories when using Ontong Daejeon, as the launch event offered a 15% cashback recharge on the amount spent.

Conversely, as Ontong Daejeon gains popularity, the city’s cashback-related budget is expected to be exhausted about 20 days earlier than initially anticipated. The city had prepared a cashback budget of 12.4 billion KRW at the time of Ontong Daejeon’s launch, planned to be distributed over two months. However, 7.27 billion KRW (59%) of the total budget was spent within the past month, which means the launch event’s cashback may end early in early next month.

In this regard, the city is reportedly considering measures such as securing additional funds (reflecting in the supplementary budget) to provide 15% cashback until the end of next month or maintaining a maximum 10% cashback on a regular basis. This is interpreted as an effort to provide additional support so that the local currency does not remain a short-term trend but settles firmly in the field.

In the latter case, the plan is to maintain a 10% cashback excluding the 5% economic revitalization support fund related to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) included in the current cashback event.

Meanwhile, the city plans to issue Ontong Daejeon worth 500 billion KRW this year, and users can recharge up to 1 million KRW per month through the app. The usage of the recharged amount is limited to Daejeon for five years from the date of issuance.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.