News

Credit Card Use Rises, But Cash Advances Fall
23 Novembar 2007

More than 11 million credit card transactions are made every day in Korea, with each card holder using his card almost once a day on average.

The Bank of Korea said Thursday that credit card use in the third quarter increased 12.7 percent compared to the same period last year to 11.17 million times a day. Credit card spending rose by 7.9 percent to W1.13 trillion (US$1=W933).

Given that there are 15 million credit card users in Korea, this means the average Korean credit holder made transactions 0.74 times a day and 22 times a month.

However, the use of credit cards for cash advances has continued to decline since 2002 when credit cards began to flood the market.

The nation's credit card holders took out cash advances 415,000 times a day in the third quarter. The number of cash advances fell by 7.6 percent compared to the third quarter last year, and were down 2.4 percent compared to the second quarter of this year.

In the first nine months of the year, Korea's credit card holders took out a total of W63.7 trillion in cash advances. That figure is expected to reach W85 trillion by the end of this year, less than 25 percent of the W357.47 trillion in cash advances in 2002.

Source : http://english.chosun.com