Fierce Competition in the Mobile Payment Market... Shinhan Financial Also Launches Independent 'Pay' Service (Comprehensive)

Shinhan Financial Independently Launches 'Shinhan Pay' to Enter the Simple Payment Market
Competition Intensifies as Shinhan Joins KB Following Big Tech Leadership

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwangho Lee] Shinhan Financial Group has joined the 'Pay' competition in the financial sector. They have launched their own pay system to challenge the simple payment market led by big tech (large information and communication companies). The entry of financial holding companies one after another is expected to cause a major shift in the simple payment market.

According to the financial sector on the 20th, Shinhan Financial launched the group's integrated simple payment service, Shinhan Pay, on the same day. This is the first time Shinhan Financial has introduced an integrated simple payment service for its group companies.

Shinhan Pay is a simple payment service that can be used at all merchants affiliated with Shinhan Card by utilizing credit and check card payments, account payments, and prepaid payments. It was launched as an upgrade of the existing Shinhan Card's Shinhan Pay Pan.

Along with the launch of Shinhan Pay, Shinhan Financial introduced a new Shinhan Pay account payment service. Any customer with a Shinhan Bank account can easily issue a mobile check card through the Shinhan Pay account payment service, and by using touch payment technology, they can use the payment service at all Shinhan Card online and offline merchants nationwide without a physical card.

Shinhan Financial plans to expand the Shinhan Pay account payment service to customers holding accounts at Shinhan Investment Corp., Jeju Bank, and Shinhan Savings Bank in the future. Additionally, they plan to continuously enhance customer convenience by strengthening connectivity with representative group applications such as Shinhan SOL.

Shinhan Financial also intends to add services that provide alternative payment methods for customers who do not have a bank account or find it difficult to open one, enabling them to use Shinhan Pay.

Earlier, KB Financial also launched 'KB Pay,' the first integrated simple payment system among domestic financial holding companies, last year. KB Pay allows registration and use of not only credit and check cards but also other payment methods. It can be used for online and on-site payments (MSR, WMC, barcode, QR) and overseas payments without a physical plastic card. Hana Financial Group is also in internal discussions to enter the pay market.

The reason financial holding companies are entering the simple payment market, which is currently led by domestic big tech companies such as Kakao Pay and Naver Pay, is due to the high growth potential of the market.

According to the Bank of Korea, the size of the simple payment market, which was 11.781 trillion KRW in 2016, surged to 39.9906 trillion KRW in 2017, 80.1453 trillion KRW in 2018, and 120 trillion KRW in 2019. The average number of uses is also on the rise. As of last year, the average daily number of uses was 14.55 million, and the amount used was 449.2 billion KRW, increasing by 44.4% and 41.6%, respectively, compared to the previous year.

A banking official said, "Although financial holding companies entered the simple payment market late, their competitiveness in offline channels surpasses that of big tech," and added, "It could cause a major shift in the increasingly intense simple payment market."

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