Naver Joins In... Will It Shake Up the Year-End Tax Settlement Private Certificate Market?

With Naver Certificate joining this year's year-end tax settlement service, competition in the private certificate market is expected to intensify.

According to the IT industry on the 30th, Naver Certificate can be used starting from this year's year-end tax settlement service. Naver Certificate has been applied to the National Tax Service's Hometax and Hometax mobile version (Handtax) since the 22nd. Naver is also internally preparing promotions related to year-end tax settlement.

The National Tax Service simplified the year-end tax settlement process by introducing private certificates and mobile functions from the beginning of this year. With the legal abolition of the official certificate status, year-end tax settlement using private certificates from five pilot operators?Kakao, KB Kookmin Bank, NHN Payco, Korea Information Certificate (Samsung PASS), and PASS?became possible. Starting from this year’s year-end tax settlement, Naver Certificate is also included.

In last year’s year-end tax settlement, the dominant method was still the joint certificate (formerly official certificate) due to the low awareness of private certificates and the fact that renewal of the familiar joint certificate was not required. Out of a total of 81.07 million cases, the use of joint certificates (71.06 million cases) accounted for nearly 90%. Among private certificates, Kakao had the highest usage volume (5.86 million cases).

However, with Naver joining Kakao in enabling big domestic tech companies’ certificate services, the trend is expected to shift in favor of private certificates. Kakao Certificate has 30 million users, and Naver has secured 26 million users and over 200 affiliated partners.

Although Naver is a latecomer, it has been expanding its business in the private certificate market by aggressively increasing usage locations last year. In October, Naver signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and is participating in the simple authentication business aiming to be installed on a total of 55 government and public institution sites, including the National Health Insurance Service and Seoul City’s internet payment system (ETAX).

In the MyData sector, Naver Certificate was chosen by about 80% of operators such as Hana Bank and Hyundai Card, and it will be available in more than 40 MyData services launching in January next year. Additionally, Naver Certificate’s use is prominent in areas with high usage among younger generations, such as the subscription home and civil defense education, and the company expects users to continue using it through this year-end tax settlement service as well.

Hwang Ji-hee, head of Naver Electronic Signature Certification Center, said, "We are closely consulting and enhancing the service to successfully launch the year-end tax settlement service using Naver Certificate," adding, "We will strive to build a reliable and more convenient authentication ecosystem."