(image: Yonhap)
SEOUL, Aug. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — The amount of money transferred via South Korea’s P2P service applications surged nearly five times on-year in 2017 on the back of its growing popularity among young customers, the financial watchdog said Tuesday.
According to the data compiled by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), the amount of transactions via the mobile-based money-transfer services came to 11.95 trillion won (US$10.54 billion) last year, up a whopping 389.7 percent from the previous year.
As the amount for this year until May stood at 11.61 trillion won, the total for 2018 is forecast to reach 27.87 trillion won, the FSS noted.
The number of transactions also jumped 362.2 percent on-year to 236.33 million in 2017, and the average amount of money per each remittance also rose from 48,000 won in 2016 to 51,000 won last year.
As seven out of 38 related firms are now operating the P2P money transfer service, their aggregate number of customers as of end-May stood at 9.07 million, the FSS said, adding that 58.1 percent of them were in their 20s and 20 percent in their 30s.
The top two digital apps — Toss run by Viva Republica Inc. and Kakao Pay by Kakaopay Corp. — accounted for 97 percent of the total market share, but they suffered losses last year as remittances using P2P applications are free of charge.
“In line with the service’s growing popularity, the government will toughen up monitoring in a way that boosts consumer protection,” the FSS said in a release.
(Yonhap)
