The number of people using smartphone banking service has exceeded 40 million for the first time ever in Korea.(image credit: Kobizmedia/ Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, May 16 (Korea Bizwire) – The number of people using smartphone banking service has exceeded 40 million for the first time ever in Korea.
On May 15, according to a report “Domestic Banking Services in the First Quarter of 2014” by the Bank of Korea, the total number of customers registered with online banking service was 97,750,000 as of March 31, 2014, a 2.4 percent increase from the end of the previous quarter.
The number of daily use and amount of money transferred through online banking service also has increased. Such increases are due to the fact that the customers registered with smartphone-based mobile banking service have increased 8.5 percent from the previous quarter to 40,340,000.
The number of smartphone banking users accounted for 41.3 percent of the total number of customers registered with online banking service, which means that about four out of ten online banking users rely on the services on their smartphones.
(graphic:Kobizmedia/Korea Bizwire)
The number of transactions made via smartphone banking was 27,370,000, a 12.8 percent increase from the previous quarter. Total transaction amount also has increased 5.7 percent compared to the previous quarter, but still accounted for only 4.5 percent in the total online banking transaction volume.
Meanwhile, as online banking has consistently increased, people are paying fewer visits to the real brick-and-mortar banks.
A Bank of Korea official said, “The growth in the number of online banking users has slowed down, but smartphone banking users are growing fast to bring up the total number.” The official predicted that the number of face-to-face transactions would tend to decrease but it would not go extinct any time soon.
Written by Robin Koo (linguistkoo@koreabizwire.com)
Money (Follow us@Moneynews_Korea)
