Payment methods in South Korea

From its Oscar-winning films, stadium-filling boybands, right through to the emerging popularity of kimchi, South Korea has its spotlight. But ask anyone in the know, and they’ll tell you that the region has been a hub for culture, technology, manufacturing and, yes, kimchi for a very long time.

South Korea is one of the world’s largest e-commerce markets with the retail e-commerce volume set to grow to US$90.5 billion by 2024, up from US$41.9 billion in 2017. As the home of some of the world’s largest digital goods companies, digital services consumption is high. Card penetration in South Korea equates to a massive 6.7 cards per person, making up 70% of all payments. Most are locally issued single-branded and dual-branded with international schemes like Visa and MasterCard. Besides cards, both online banking and e-wallets are popular for e-commerce, with KakaoPay one such method.