Seoul: Daily card spending in South Korea rose 4.1 percent last year from a year earlier, but its growth decelerated amid a slump in domestic demand, central bank data showed Wednesday. Holders of credit, debit, and prepaid cards spent an average of 3.44 trillion won (US$2.32 billion) per day in 2024, compared with 3.3 trillion won the previous year, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK).
According to Yonhap News Agency, the growth of daily card spending has slowed from a 12.7 percent on-year increase in 2022 to 6.2 percent in 2023 and further to 4.1 percent last year. Credit card spending went up 4.3 percent on-year to a daily average of 2.73 trillion won, while daily spending of debit cards climbed 3.7 percent to 695 billion won.
The smaller increase in card spending came as private spending added 3.2 percent on-year in 2024, decelerating from a 5.1 percent advance in 2023, according to the BOK. Card payments via Internet and mobile systems went up 5.5 percent on-year to an average of 1.6 trillion won, while transactions with physical cards declined by 2.3 percent to 1.4 trillion won.
Card spending through mobile and other online systems accounted for 52.4 percent of total card transactions last year, up from 50.5 percent a year earlier, the data showed.