South Korea's credit card use shrinks 2.1% amidst the pandemic: report

Daily average use of contact-free spending jumped 12.7% from Feb to May.

Card payments in South Korea began to drop shortly after the country confirmed the new coronavirus outbreak in late January, in what could be another data backing reduced spending amidst the pandemic, reports Yonhap News Agency.

Between February and May, the overall amount of payments made with cards dropped 2.1% from the same period last year, data from the Bank of Korea (BOK) revealed.

The country reported its first COVID-19 infection case on 20 January.

By method, contact-free card spending jumped 12.7% to a daily average of about $660m (800 billion won) in the February-May period.

On the other hand, card payments made with face-to-face transactions fell 8.4% to about $1.17b (1.4 trillion won) per day, official data added.

Credit card spending fell 3.8% YoY, whilst payments made with debit cards dipped 0.1%.

In contrast, prepaid cards spiked nearly 900% over the cited period, which was largely driven by state allowances and emergency relief aids provided in such a form, the central bank said.

"By month, card spending dropped at the fastest rate of 7.4% in March on a sharp increase in the number of new coronavirus cases but made a turnaround to a positive growth of 0.9% on-year in May on the use of emergency relief funds," the BOK said.