Card payments remain top choice of South Koreans

Nearly half of surveyed Koreans use credit cards for payments.

Card payments continue to be the top payment choice of South Koreans, making up over half of transactions.

In a survey of 3,500 adults by the Bank of Korea (BOK), credit cards accounted for 46.2% of all transactions, whilst debit cards accounted for 16.4%.

For international transactions, 89.2% of respondents who made overseas payments in the past year reported using a credit card.

It is estimated that 68.4% of Koreans over the age of 15 have a credit card, according to World Bank data.

One card company, Hyundai Card, said that its annual credit sales reached $120b (KRW166.2t) in 2024.

The number of its members also increased by over 510,000 compared to a year earlier. It now has 12.25 million members.