KakaoBank's 5th Anniversary, Approaching 20 Million Customers... Deposit Scale Reaches 33 Trillion Won

[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] KakaoBank, celebrating its 5th anniversary, has nearly reached 20 million customers.

On the 8th, KakaoBank released its '5th Anniversary Achievements' report, stating that as of the 31st of last month, the number of customers was counted at 19.38 million. Since launching its internet banking service on July 27, 2017, KakaoBank initially secured 240,000 customers and has continuously expanded its customer base to 6.37 million in 2018, 11.17 million in 2019, 14 million in 2020, and 16.9 million in 2021 (all based on July 27 each year).

KakaoBank's monthly active users (MAU) in June reached a record high of 15.42 million. According to KakaoBank, it ranked first among banking apps based on Nielsen Media digital data. The MAU also expanded from 3.8 million at the end of 2017 to 10.6 million by the end of 2019.

KakaoBank's deposits, which were 344 billion KRW in 2017, grew to approximately 33 trillion KRW as of July this year, while loans increased from 323 billion KRW to 27 trillion KRW during the same period.

The cumulative number of new 26-week installment savings accounts and the number of users of group accounts each surpassed 10 million. KakaoBank plans to introduce various services in the second half of the year, including financial products for individual business owners, stock account openings, and expansion of credit card partnerships.

Through cashback benefits on its check cards, KakaoBank paid out 267 billion KRW in cashback to customers as of the end of last month. Since its launch, it has reduced customers' financial costs by waiving ATM fees amounting to 188.7 billion KRW until 2021, saving 10.8 billion KRW in interest through acceptance of interest rate reduction requests, paying an additional 70.2 billion KRW in Safe Box interest, and waiving early repayment fees totaling 79.3 billion KRW.

A KakaoBank official stated, "Over the past five years, various products and services have received positive responses from customers, allowing us to grow into an internet bank with nearly 20 million users soon. We will continue to launch innovative products aiming to be a bank for everyone and do our best to become a platform that reduces customers' financial costs."