With Apple Pay's Arrival... Last Year's Mobile Payment Usage Increased by 15%

Last Year Average Daily Mobile Payment Volume of 875.5 Billion KRW
Bank of Korea Electronic Payment Service Usage Report

A customer is making a payment using Apple Pay at a coffee shop in Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

Last year, the usage scale of domestic simple payment services increased by about 15% compared to 2022.

According to the Bank of Korea's report "Status of Electronic Payment Service Usage in 2023," the daily average usage of simple payment services last year was 27.35 million transactions and 875.5 billion KRW, representing increases of 13.4% and 15.0% respectively compared to the previous year.

Simple payment is a method that allows easy payment by simply touching a terminal using information such as credit cards or bank accounts stored on a smartphone.

Looking at the usage amount of simple payments by provider, electronic financial companies such as KakaoPay and NaverPay accounted for the largest share (48.9%). However, this share slightly decreased from 49.9% in the previous year.

On the other hand, the share of mobile phone manufacturers such as Samsung Pay and Apple Pay expanded from 22.7% in 2021 to 25.6% last year. This is presumed to be due to Apple Pay starting its service in March last year. The daily average number of simple payment transactions and amount by mobile phone manufacturers last year were 8.598 million transactions and 223.81 billion KRW, increasing by 19.9% and 20.8% respectively compared to the previous year.

The daily average usage scale of prepaid-based simple remittance services by electronic financial companies also continued strong growth, reaching 6.36 million transactions and 776.8 billion KRW last year, up 22.4% and 24.1% respectively from the previous year. Simple remittance is a method of sending prepaid money charged via mobile account transfers to recipients using phone numbers or social media. The increase in simple remittances using Toss, NaverPay, KakaoPay, and others contributed to this growth.

Credit card payment agency services also increased significantly. Last year, the daily average usage of electronic payment gateway (PG) services was 25.88 million transactions and 1.2266 trillion KRW, up 9.4% and 16.5% respectively from the previous year. The increase was driven by growth in credit card payment agency services, which make up most of PG services, due to increased online transactions, as well as a significant rise in virtual account payment agency services.

The daily average usage of prepaid electronic payment instruments also rose to 29.57 million transactions and 13.5 billion KRW, increasing by 9.2% and 21.1% respectively compared to the previous year. The Bank of Korea explained that this is mainly due to the continued growth of simple payment and simple remittance services by electronic financial companies.