SEOUL, Apr. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean people are increasingly going cashless as more people rely on credit cards and digital payment tools, a survey by the Bank of Korea (BOK) showed Tuesday. Korean households had an average 78,000 won (US$68.60) in cash in their wallets at any given time in 2018, down 33 [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 15 (Korea Bizwire) — Banks in South Korea will fully open their payment network to fintech firms in December, officials said Monday, in a fresh effort to encourage development of new payment services and greater competition in the financial sector. Currently, only banks can access the payment network, but even banks are allowed [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 15 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean lender KB Kookmin Bank has introduced a new service that allows customers to make withdrawals through hand recognition, instead of having to use a bankbook, stamp or password. The bank announced on Sunday that customers will now be able to make withdrawals at the counter using palm [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — Hyundai Card Co., a local credit card firm, said Friday that it has introduced an artificial intelligence-based counseling service in its customer center. The AI automatic response system (ARS) listens to clients’ desired service and provides them with appropriate counseling with no waiting time, according to the company. It [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — In the two years since the launch of the country’s first Internet-only bank, South Korea’s banking sector has moved towards digitalization to better satisfy customers’ growing appetite for convenient and diverse financial experiences. As new Internet-only banks get ready to set sail next year, competition in the industry is [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — Homemakers, university graduates, and other financially vulnerable groups will be able to qualify for loans more easily if they have been paying for their mobile plans diligently. The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) announced on Tuesday that five major banks in South Korea will consider mobile payments and non-financial information [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — The daily amount of payments made electronically nearly doubled last year as a growing number of South Koreans are carrying out their financial transactions on smartphones, central bank data showed Wednesday. The daily average for electronic financial transactions came to a record 126.1 billion won (US$111.1 million) in 2018, [...]
SEOUL, Apr. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — Loans and the loan default rate both rose for the self-employed last year, the regulator’s data showed Monday. The loans extended to the self-employed totaled 389.8 trillion won (US$342.83 billion) at the end of the third quarter last year, up 13.9 percent from the same period of the previous [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — There is at least one industry in South Korea where hardly a day goes by without financial authorities mentioning deregulation: financial technology, or fintech. Since the National Assembly passed bills last September on a “regulatory sandbox,” in which fintech firms are allowed to experiment under amicable regulations, state regulators [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s Internet banking services grew at a fast clip last year, with the number of daily transactions and their total value reaching record highs, central bank data showed Thursday. The number of online banking service users came to a record 146.56 million as of the end of 2018, [...]