'Mobile Card' Payments Surpass Physical Cards

Bank of Korea '2023 Domestic Payment Trends'
Daily Card Usage Amount Increases by 6.2%
Mobile Payment Share Surpasses 50%

A customer is making a payment using Apple Pay at a coffee shop in Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

Last year, the average daily card usage amount increased by 6.2% compared to the previous year. The payment volume using mobile devices surged, surpassing the physical card payment volume for the first time.

According to the Bank of Korea's "2023 Domestic Payment Trends" report released on the 25th, the average daily usage amount of payment cards last year was 3.3 trillion KRW, up 6.2% from the previous year. By card type, credit card usage increased by 6.9%, and check card usage rose by 4.5%.

By payment method, last year's face-to-face payment amount averaged 1.8 trillion KRW daily, up 6.6% from the previous year, while non-face-to-face payments reached 1.2 trillion KRW, increasing by 5.6%. The proportion of face-to-face payments in total payments (60.1%) remained similar to the previous year (59.9%).

Non-face-to-face payments include not only online transactions such as online shopping using mobile devices (smartphones), PCs, etc., but also payments made on-site without terminal contact through mobile devices, such as automatic payments via taxi-hailing apps.

By access device, the payment volume using mobile devices and others (+10.8% year-on-year) increased significantly more than payments using physical cards (+1.9%). Accordingly, the share of payments made via mobile devices in total payments has steadily expanded from 38.6% in 2019 to 50.5% last year. Last year marked the first time the mobile device payment share exceeded 50%.

Among payments through mobile devices (average daily 1.5 trillion KRW), the share using card-based simple payment services continued to expand due to convenience preferences, reaching 48.5% in 2023. Within card-based simple payment services, the share of services provided by fintech companies expanded to 67.7% in 2023, maintaining an upward trend.

Last year, the average daily amount of account transfers through small-amount payment networks was 92.7 trillion KRW, up 1.0% from the previous year. The electronic financial joint network, including internet banking (+1.0%), showed a slowdown in transfer volume growth following the previous year's (+6.0%) increase.

Meanwhile, last year's average daily amount of bill and check payments was 15.6 trillion KRW, down 6.6% from the previous year. The Bank of Korea explained that the decrease in the use of fixed-amount instruments such as cashier's checks continues due to increased use of 50,000 KRW bills and the expansion of electronic payment methods.

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