Shinhan Play Sees User Count Soar to 450,000 in One Month

Shinhan Card Revamp, Competing with Big Tech
Monthly Active Users (MAU) Surpass 6 Million

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki Ha-young] Shinhan Card's newly revamped 'Shinhan Play' saw its monthly active users surge by nearly 500,000 within a month. The cumulative number of users also surpassed 6 million. Attention is focused on whether it can secure competitive parity as a platform company amid the rapid encroachment of big tech (large information technology companies) into the payment market.

According to Shinhan Card on the 9th, Shinhan Play's MAU (Monthly Active Users) in October was recorded at 6.35 million. This is an increase of 450,000 (7.6%) from 5.9 million in September within just one month. MAU is an indicator that reflects how active the platform is, not just the size of its membership. Although it is still smaller compared to the MAU of big tech or banking applications, it is a remarkable growth trend in the card industry.

Shinhan Card declared its evolution into a lifestyle finance platform and launched Shinhan Play last month, which revamped the existing simple payment platform Shinhan PayFAN. The focus was on integration, speed, and personalization improvements. It provides integrated super app services including payment, banking, asset management, a partner company integrated membership program accumulated with a single barcode, wallet services such as ID and authentication, and customized content based on customer interests. The Shake & Slide technology, which enables payment by shaking the smartphone or using the home screen edge panel, was also applied.

Not only has Shinhan Play's MAU increased, but digital sector performance continues as well. Shinhan Card's digital coverage (the ratio of new digital transactions to total new transactions) in financial products and simple payment sectors recorded 58.8% and 23.6%, respectively, in the third quarter of this year. This is an increase of 6.9 percentage points and 2.4 percentage points compared to the end of last year. Shinhan Card's strategy is to raise these figures to 60% and 25% by the end of the year.

In particular, cost reduction through digital means has also led to improved performance. The scale of digital cost savings up to the third quarter this year reached 40.8 billion KRW, accounting for 59.5% of the increase in net profit. Digital cost savings have been increasing significantly every year, with 12 billion KRW in 2019, 34.6 billion KRW in 2020, and 40.8 billion KRW accumulated up to the third quarter this year.

Shinhan Card aims to leap beyond being the number one in the card industry to becoming a platform company with competitiveness against big tech. At the end of September, through the Shinhan Play Unpack Show, it declared a second founding and unveiled a blueprint to transform into a 'Life & Finance' platform company with 30 million customers and an annual transaction volume of 200 trillion KRW. At this event, Shinhan Card CEO Lim Young-jin emphasized, "Now, through evolution into a platform company with 30 million members, we will fill customers' daily lives with enjoyable play and achieve the completion of a differentiated customer life."

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