Apple Pay triggers surge in Hyundai Card users

An Apple Pay advertisement outside the Hyundai Card Design Library building in Seoul (Yonhap)

Hyundai Card, the first partner of Apple Pay in South Korea, saw a 75 percent on-month increase in the number of its new card users during the first month since the payment service launched in Korea.

The number of new Hyundai Card members has increased by 203,000 following the launch of Apple Pay in Korea on Mar. 21, according to data from the Credit Finance Association of Korea.

The number of new members of Hyundai Card in March was the highest among eight local credit card companies -- Lotte, BC, Samsung, Shinhan, Woori, Hana, Hyundai and KB Kookmin Card.

The figure is also around twice the number of new members that the Hyundai Card had in February, which stood at 116,000.

According to industry sources, the surge in new members for Hyundai Card can be attributed to iPhone users who were interested in trying out Apple Pay.

Currently, Hyundai Card is the only partner of Apple Pay.

Aside from Hyundai Card, KB Kookmin Card attracted 149,000 new members, followed by Shinhan Card with 136,000 new members, and Samsung Card with 127,000 new members.

Also, Chung Tae-young, Vice Chairman and CEO of Hyundai Card announced on April 11 via his social media account that within the first three weeks of its launch, Apple Pay in Korea had garnered over two million newly signed-up tokens. This indicates that two million more Apple devices such as smartphones and watches are now able to use the Apple Pay service.

But despite Hyundai Card's first-mover advantage, other major local credit card companies have not made any moves yet on adopting Apple's digital wallet service due to the lack of infrastructure.

Out of approximately 2.9 million stores in Korea, it is estimated that only 100,000 have NFC readers that work with Apple Pay. Also, Apple has so far not agreed on terms with public transportation payment providers like Tmoney.

Meanwhile, credit card companies compete head-on in a crowded market. According to the Credit Finance Association, Shinhan Card was the largest credit card issuer with 19.6 percent as of the fourth quarter of last year, closely followed by Samsung Card at 17.8 percent, Hyundai Card at 16 percent and KB Kookmin Card at 15.4 percent.

By Song Seung-hyun(ssh@heraldcorp.com)