Koreans pay 723.2 billion won per day with smartphone payment

The simple mobile payment market, which rapidly grew after the spread of COVID-19, is expected to grow even further, with Apple Pay starting its service in Korea. Simple payment services such as Kakao Pay and Samsung Pay are raking in more than 700 billion won per day on average.

With the rapid increase in mobile phone remittances and subscriptions to financial products, analysts say that the transition to the “wallet-free era” is accelerating. However, some are concerned that the widespread usage of mobile finance may increase the risk of security accidents such as personal information leakage or crimes such as voice phishing.

According to the Bank of Korea on Friday, service usage was 723.2 billion won in the first half of this year. It is the largest amount since the Bank of Korea started compiling statistics in 2016. for the past six years, the amount has soared nearly 30 times. Compared to 653.3 billion won in the second half of last year, it increased by 10.7%. Usage of the services has been increasing by more than 10% every half year since 2020.

In the fierce 'payment war,' big techs such as Naver Pay and Kakao Pay are taking the lead. As of the first half of this year, the usage of simple payment services provided by electronic financial companies exceeded half (50.4%) of the entire market. This includes all payment services provided by online shopping malls and financial platforms such as SSG Pay, Coupang Pay, and Toss Pay. Payment services by financial companies such as banks and credit card companies take the second biggest share in the market (26.1%), followed by services provided by mobile phone manufacturers such as Samsung Pay (23.5%).

Mobile financial services, including simple payment, have spread rapidly since the pandemic. According to a survey conducted by the Bank of Korea on 3,536 adults last year, 65.4% answered that they had used financial services on mobile devices within the past month. In particular, the response rate exceeded 80% among those in their 20s (86.9%), 30s (89.7%), and 40s (83.4%). In addition, 42.1% of the respondents answered that the use of mobile financial services “increased” after the pandemic.

However, there are concerns that the more mobile financial services spread, the greater the risk of security incidents such as identity theft or personal information leakage. Ten percent of respondents said they had experienced loss or theft of payment instruments, forgery/falsification, personal information leakage, and other incidents over the past year, an increase of 2.7 percentage points compared to 2019 (7.3%). "Safety is more important than convenience when it comes to financial services such as payment and remittance," said office worker Lee Seong-min (40). "I've been using physical cards due to security concerns no matter how widespread the payment services have become."


jhshin93@donga.com