Some eight out of 10 adults in South Korea own at least one credit card, highlighting the saturation in the country’s card market, new survey data suggest.
For its research, the Korea Consumer Agency surveyed 2,000 adults ages 20 to 70 by phone.
Among the respondents, 82% had at least one credit card. But broken down, the data also suggest that 24% of South Koreans own only one credit card, while 30.7% own two credit cards, 24.7% have three and 20.7% four.
“This is quite indicative of Korea’s mature consumer segment,” a spokesperson for the Credit Finance Association of Korea tells PaymentsSource. “Cards and not cash has become the primary transactional tool.”
Though the spokesperson declined to comment on whether the survey data illustrate the country’s growing reliance on credit, she noted that consumers holding more than one credit card were more stable financially than were those holding one card. “That shows that due diligence has been observed in issuing cards,” she says
Demographically, the bulk of consumers holding just one credit card generally had middle-school education or less and were women in their 20s with a monthly income of less than 2 million won (US$1,780 or 1,358 euros).
By comparison, the bulk of those having more than four credit cards generally were married adults in their 30s with at least a postgraduate degree and monthly earnings of at least 4 million won, the survey found.
In addition, 62.4% of the respondents chose credit cards as the payment tool they use most often, and respondents in their 40s showed the highest average credit card use.
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