Beyond Payment Network Provision... BC Card Ventures into Business Diversification

Diversification Strategy Beyond Payment Agency
Reorganizing for MyData Business
Increasing Customers with Own Card and Accelerating Rental Services

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki Ha-young] BC Card is focusing on business diversification beyond its payment processing services. The business structure, heavily concentrated on payment processing, has been cited as the cause of sluggish performance. Attention is focused on whether remarkable results will emerge as the company pursues various businesses such as data and proprietary cards this year.

According to BC Card on the 17th, since the inauguration of President Choi Won-seok in March, the company has been putting effort into generating results through business diversification.

The main focus is on data. Earlier this year, President Choi merged or newly established data-related organizations to expand their scale. The big data-related department was consolidated into the 'AI Big Data Headquarters,' the simple payment-related department into the 'Paybook Headquarters,' and a 'MyData Headquarters' was newly established for the MyData business, which will be fully launched by the end of this year.

As a result, data-related business models are gradually becoming visible. Earlier this month, BC Card introduced 'BC IDEA,' a customized big data analysis service for enterprises. Based on 500 million card payment transactions per month and information from 3.2 million merchants, the company has entered the data sales business. The structure extracts data needed by each company, conducts in-depth analysis, and even proposes business strategies.

BC Card is also consecutively launching proprietary credit cards, which it had previously restrained from releasing to avoid competition with card companies using its payment network. In partnership with K Bank, it introduced the 'K Bank Simple Card,' BC Card's first private label credit card (PLCC), and also launched the 'Blackpink Card' in collaboration with YG Entertainment. Both cards have received positive initial market responses, with most applications being new, resulting in significant customer acquisition effects.

In March, BC Card added leasing to its business sectors, laying the foundation to conduct leasing or rental businesses. The company is also actively exploring global markets. A representative example is the 100% acquisition agreement signed at the end of April for 'Wirecard Vietnam,' the number one POS terminal distributor in Vietnam.

These changes at BC Card are seen as reflecting President Choi's determination to recover from poor performance. BC Card's net profit last year was 69.7 billion KRW, down 39.6% from the previous year. In the first quarter of this year, it dropped sharply by 64.3% to 9.7 billion KRW compared to the previous year. This is analyzed to be because BC Card's revenue sources are concentrated on providing payment networks. In fact, as of the first quarter of this year, 87.5% of BC Card's operating performance came from acquiring business revenue. Especially due to the impact of COVID-19, offline sales decreased and the online proportion increased, which also affected BC Card's acquiring business.

An industry insider predicted, "How successful business diversification will be will play an important role in BC Card's future performance rebound."

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