Asia-Pacific · GDP rank #11
South Korea
KR · KRW @ 0.0006580/USD
South Korea has the most card-intense consumer economy in the G20: credit-card spending alone runs at roughly 90% of nominal GDP, supported by a three-decade policy stack of tax credits for card use, mandatory acceptance and subsidised merchant pricing. Super-app wallets (KakaoPay, Naver Pay, Toss) sit on top of cards as their settlement backbone rather than displacing them. Project Han-gang's Phase 2 went live in March 2026 with nine banks testing won-pegged deposit tokens, while the new BOK governor has publicly prioritised CBDC and bank tokens over stablecoins.
Tab 02
Consumer payments
How consumers actually pay: the share of cash, the stock and flow of cards, the scheme split at checkout, which mobile wallets matter, and how broadly POS acceptance reaches.
Every figure is authored against a named publisher — click the ⓘ anywhere to open the source panel with the underlying URL and access date.
Cash share of POS volume
% · 2024
Debit card share
% · 2024
Credit card share
% · 2024
Mobile wallet share
% · 2024
Counts wallet-initiated transactions regardless of downstream settlement rail.
Payment mix
At the point of sale
The shares below are POS volume (count of transactions), which reads differently from POS value. For the value-share read, see the card-economy grid underneath.
Share of POS
- Cash8%
- Credit card54%
- Debit card18%
- Instant / A2A4%
- Mobile wallet14%
- BNPL2%
Cash behaviour
- ATM network
- 115,000
- Avg. ATM withdrawal
- ₩140,000
- Cash share · value
- 4%
- Cash share · volume
- 8%
Source · KFTC
Scheme share
Which networks clear the card volume
Scheme share is the split of general-purpose card purchase volume — not issuance, not count of cards. A high domestic share (e.g. UnionPay, RuPay, ELO) means a large share of card flow never touches a global scheme.
BC Card acts as a platform-processor and domestic scheme; works alongside or on top of issuer brand for many cards.
Share of card volume
- Visa28%
- Mastercard18%
- Amex3%
- Other15%
- Domestic Scheme36%
Debit / check-card transactions
transactions/year · 2024
Debit / check-card spend
KRW annual · 2024
Credit card transactions
transactions/year · 2024
Credit card spend
KRW annual · 2024
Average debit ticket size
KRW · 2024
Average credit ticket size
KRW · 2024
Mobile wallets
Where wallets actually land
User counts are the best single scalar for wallet reach, but they understate usage intensity in markets where one super-app carries multi-digit trillions of renminbi or rupees. For flow, see the rails tab.
Active users
- KakaoPay24M
Q4 2025
- Naver Pay23M
Q4 2025
- Toss21M
Q4 2025
- Samsung Pay17M
2024
- Apple Pay (launched March 2023)5.6M
2024
Notable wallets
KakaoPay
Registered users exceed 50M (nearly universal among Korean adults). Integrated into KakaoTalk messenger.
Kakao Corp
Naver Pay
Naver Financial
Toss
Operates a parent fintech that owns Toss Bank (internet-only bank), Toss Securities (brokerage) and Toss Payments (acquiring).
Viva Republica
Samsung Pay
Samsung Electronics
Apple Pay (launched March 2023)
Partnership with Hyundai Card at launch; Hana Card and KB Kookmin Card joined in 2024.
Credit Finance Association of Korea
Full reference