South Korea

Added-value benefits of using cards help maintain its dominance.

Increased lending capacity and intensifying competition encourage banks.

The household lending rate hit 5.57% per annum on average in November.

In the near term, rising interest rates may discourage card use.

Unsecured personal loans and small business loans are bigger risks.

All services under Kakao were severely affected by the data center fire.

The rise in banks’ lending rates contributed to the fall.

Expectation of strong government support and solid foreign currency liquidity will support banks.

Users of these e-wallets can now pay over 120,000 merchants in South Korea.

Banks closed 380 offline offices between March 2021 to March 2022, according to the FSS.

There are about 18.82 million use cases per day in Korea.

It will raise the company’s total capital stock to KRW1.35t.

The four biggest banks’ NIMs climbed to levels higher than pre-COVID.

But bad loans are expected to rise moderately.

The average frequency of credit card usage in the country grew 137.5 times in 2022.

Household loan growth has slowed as borrowing costs rose, according to Yonhap.   Banks in South Korea are expected to further ease lending in the third quarter, even as credit risks are expected to rise, reports Yonhap, based on a survey conducted by the Bank of Korea (BOK).   An index gauging banks’ attitude toward home-backed loans and unsecured household lending stood at 14 and 19, respectively, for the July-September period, according to the findings of a poll of officials handling credit affairs at financial institutions (FIs)—which include 18 banks.   A reading above zero means the number of lenders that will ease lending surpasses that of banks planning to tighten lending criteria.