Sold Out 15 Billion KRW of Jongno Sarang Gift Certificates in the First Half of 2021

Proving High Popularity with Sold-Out Record in 52 Days from Sales Start... Issued 25 Billion KRW Last Year, Payment Amount Reached 29.1 Billion KRW and Approximately 800,000 Transactions by March This Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Jongil Park] Jongno-gu (District Mayor Kim Young-jong) proved the high popularity of the Jongno Love Gift Certificate, which was issued for 15 billion KRW in the first half of this year, by selling out within 52 days from the sales start date of February 3.

The Jongno Love Gift Certificate was introduced to alleviate the payment fee burden on small business owners struggling due to COVID-19 and to revitalize the local economy by providing discount benefits to consumers.

As of March this year, the total payment amount using the Jongno Love Gift Certificate reached 29.1 billion KRW, with approximately 800,000 transactions.

The main usage locations with high payment amounts were general restaurants, accounting for more than 70%, followed by academies, service industries, and other sectors.

This shows that the Jongno Love Gift Certificate has provided practical help to small business owners in line with its initial issuance purpose and contributed to revitalizing the stagnant local economy.

Furthermore, as the Jongno Love Gift Certificate gained high popularity, the number of Zero Pay affiliated stores in the area steadily increased from 7,880 last year to about 12,900.

The Jongno Love Gift Certificate can be used through dedicated applications such as Beeple Zero Pay, Moneytree, CheckPay, Payco, Fint, and NongHyup All One Bank.

It employs a contactless payment method using smartphones, which helps prevent infectious diseases, making it an optimized untact payment method in the COVID-19 era.

Meanwhile, last year, Jongno-gu issued 25 billion KRW worth of Jongno Love Gift Certificates and sold them at a maximum 15% discount to commemorate the first year of issuance. Despite lowering the discount rate afterward, steady sales were recorded, receiving positive responses from consumers.

District Mayor Kim Young-jong said, “We plan to issue an additional 15 billion KRW worth of Jongno Love Gift Certificates in the second half of this year. We hope this will support small business owners who are struggling due to ongoing social distancing and the resurgence of COVID-19. We will continue to increase affiliated stores and strive to improve the convenience of using the gift certificates.”

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