Toss, KakaoPay, and Other Simple Remittance Services: 13 Billion KRW Sent Incorrectly Over 5 Years

Assemblyman Yoon Kwan-seok "System Improvement Needed"

(Photo by Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation)

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwangho Lee] Approximately 13 billion KRW has been mistakenly transferred over the past five years through simple remittance services provided by online financial platforms.

According to data submitted by the Financial Supervisory Service to Yoon Kwan-seok, a member of the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, the mistaken transfer amounts for three companies?Toss, KakaoPay, and Naver Pay?increased 19.2 times from 263.79 million KRW in 2017 to 5.32334 billion KRW last year.

The amounts steadily increased to 1.06126 billion KRW in 2018 and 2.94785 billion KRW in 2019, recording 3.34547 billion KRW in the first half of this year. The total mistaken transfer amount from 2017 to June this year reached 12.94173 billion KRW.

In terms of the number of cases, a total of 55,506 mistaken transfers occurred over five years. There were 2,197 cases in 2017, 6,695 in 2018, 13,843 in 2019, and 21,595 in 2020, with 11,176 cases recorded up to June this year.

By company, Toss, which first entered the simple remittance market in 2015, experienced 36,450 mistaken transfers amounting to 8.53785 billion KRW over five years. Mistaken transfers increased 5.2 times from 2,197 cases (263.79 million KRW) in 2017 to 13,670 cases (3.4791 billion KRW) last year.

KakaoPay had 18,799 cases (4.3701 billion KRW) over four years, and Naver Pay had 257 cases (96.86 million KRW) over one and a half years of mistaken transfers.

Among the mistaken transfers over five years, 74%, equivalent to 9.53319 billion KRW (42,315 cases), were not returned to their owners.

The unreturned amounts are 6.37421 billion KRW (29,386 cases) for Toss, 3.11382 billion KRW (12,811 cases) for KakaoPay, and 45.14 million KRW (136 cases) for Naver Pay.

Assemblyman Yoon said, "As digital finance develops and non-face-to-face financial transactions increase due to COVID-19, the scale of mistaken transfers is rapidly increasing. Simple remittance companies need to continuously improve their systems to reduce errors such as mistaken transfers."