E-payment transactions in South Korea hit 10-year high in Q2

Transactions surged 17.4% to $104.87m.

Mobile payments continued to find a welcome foothold in tech-savvy Korea as the average amount of electronic financial transactions rose 17.4% QoQ to $104.87m (KRW117.4b) in Q2, reports Yonhap News Agency.

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Although e-payment figures have been steadily growing in the past four years, the latest quarterly reading marks the highest point since the central bank started collecting data in 2008.

The daily average number of electronic deals in Q2 correspondingly rose 26% QoQ to 3.63 million. Similarly, the daily transactions of mobile payments or digital wallet services like Samsung Pay rose 7.1% QoQ over the same period.

The government is stepping up efforts to encourage cashless adoption amidst plans to roll out a local payment system based on scanning QR codes similar to China’s Alipay and WeChat Pay by 2019.