Average Daily Card Spending Increased by 9.4% Last Year Due to Consumer Recovery... E-commerce and Travel Up

Impact of COVID-19 Leads to 16.2% Surge in Contactless Payment Amounts

On the 30th, during the Lunar New Year holiday, travelers including those returning home are boarding KTX trains at Seoul Station. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Seo So-jeong] As consumption recovered from the impact of COVID-19 last year, the average daily card usage amount increased by more than 9%.

According to the "Domestic Payment Trends" released by the Bank of Korea on the 22nd, the average daily usage amount of payment cards such as credit, debit, and prepaid cards for individuals and corporations in 2021 was 2.8 trillion KRW, up 9.4% compared to the same period last year.

The Bank of Korea explained, "As private consumption recovered last year, the usage of both credit and debit cards increased, and non-face-to-face payments through mobile devices expanded due to the impact of COVID-19." It added, "By industry, e-commerce and travel surged, and by region, all areas saw increases."

Looking at individual credit card usage by consumption type, most sectors increased, centered on e-commerce (21.5%) and travel (20.5%). On the other hand, usage in restaurants (-2.2%) and automobiles (-1.9%) was sluggish.

By card type, credit cards recorded 2.16 trillion KRW, up 10.2%, and debit cards recorded 581 billion KRW, up 7.6%, due to the recovery of private consumption. However, prepaid cards recorded 12.08 billion KRW, down 25.8%, due to a base effect from the sharp increase in usage in 2020 when some emergency disaster relief funds were provided via prepaid cards.

Monthly payment card usage showed continuous growth after February, when COVID-19 vaccinations began.

By payment method, non-face-to-face payments through mobile devices such as smartphones (average daily 1 trillion KRW) increased by 16.2%, while face-to-face payments (1.43 trillion KRW) grew by only 2.9%. The non-face-to-face payment statistics include not only mobile-based payments but also offline payments where physical cards are not used and mobile devices are tapped.

Non-face-to-face payments accounted for 40.1% of total payments in the fourth quarter of last year, and the share of card-based simple payment services among payments made via mobile devices and PCs was 46.3%.

The scale of account transfers through small-amount payment networks increased by 19.7% year-on-year to an average daily 87.2 trillion KRW as preference for non-face-to-face financial transactions continued. The amount of bill and check payments also increased by 3.6% year-on-year to an average daily 18.9 trillion KRW due to the expansion of electronic bill issuance.

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