Average Daily Card Usage Reaches 3.6 Trillion Won Last Year: "Simple Payments Outpace Physical Cards"

Payment Card Usage Up 4.7% Year-on-Year
Growth Driven by Non-Face-to-Face and Mobile Transactions
Physical Card Use Declines for Second Consecutive Year

Last year, the daily average usage of credit and debit cards exceeded 3.5 trillion won. While the use of mobile devices increased, payments made using physical cards continued to decline for the second consecutive year.

According to the "2025 Domestic Payment and Settlement Trends" released by the Bank of Korea on March 30, the average daily payment card usage in the previous year reached 3.596 trillion won, a 4.7% increase compared to 3.436 trillion won the year before.

The growth rate slightly surpassed the previous year’s increase of 4.1%, when private consumption growth had slowed.

By type, postpaid cards (credit cards) recorded an average daily usage of 2.859 trillion won last year, up 4.6% from a year earlier. Debit cards (including check and cash cards) saw the daily average usage amount rise to 725 billion won, a 4.3% increase over the same period. In contrast, the prepaid card usage scale jumped 77.7% to a daily average of 12 billion won.

The usage through dedicated card companies was provisionally tallied at an average of 3.074 trillion won per day.

Analysis based on usage through dedicated card companies showed a stark contrast between physical card use and mobile device use.

The usage amount through physical cards averaged 1.4 trillion won per day, down 0.4% from the previous year, marking a continued decline for two consecutive years. In contrast, payments made without presenting a physical card, such as through mobile devices, increased 7.3% to 1.7 trillion won over the same period. This figure includes not only face-to-face payment methods involving mobile devices and card terminals but also non-face-to-face methods such as online shopping.

Of the payment card usage through mobile devices and similar means, simple payment services accounted for 51.9%, up from 51.1% the previous year. This refers to payment services where card information is pre-stored on a mobile device and simple authentication methods such as fingerprint recognition are used during transactions.

Within simple payment services, the share attributed to fintech companies (ICT companies and mobile phone manufacturers) increased to 72.5%, while the share for card companies decreased to 27.5%.

Based on the method of use, face-to-face transactions amounted to 1.8 trillion won and non-face-to-face transactions totaled 1.3 trillion won, marking year-over-year increases of 1.8% and 6.4%, respectively.

Last year, the daily average usage of promissory notes and checks stood at 17.697 trillion won, up 10.7% from 15.981 trillion won the previous year. The use of cashier’s checks increased 17.8% to 7.925 trillion won, and both promissory notes and electronic notes also rose by 10% and 11.9%, respectively. In contrast, the use of cashier’s drafts and household checks decreased by 16.2% and 6.1%, respectively.

The average daily amount of account transfers through the small-amount payment network reached 105.3 trillion won, a 6.1% increase over the previous year. Electronic financial shared network transfers, which accounted for 91.6% of the total, led the growth with a 6.7% increase to a daily average of 96.4 trillion won. The scale of account transfers through the open banking shared network (averaging 2.1 trillion won per day) rose by 3.8% compared to the previous year, but this growth rate was significantly lower than the previous year’s 19% increase.

Meanwhile, last year, the average daily number of internet banking transactions (including mobile banking, excluding mutual savings banks and microfinance institutions) at domestic banks was 28.29 million, a 10.9% increase from the previous year. The total transaction value rose 3.4% to 90.1 trillion won.

Of these, the daily average number of mobile banking transactions was 25.43 million and the transaction value was 17 trillion won, representing year-over-year increases of 12.2% and 6.9%, respectively. The share of mobile banking in total transactions expanded to 89.9% in terms of number of transactions and 20% in terms of transaction value.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.