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Shinhan sees app card’s success rising

Shinhan found that most of its smartphone “app card” users were females in their 20s or 30s, according to a report from the company’s Big Data center yesterday.

The average age of Shinhan app card users was 33.7 and females made up 52.5 percent of app card users, according to Shinhan. The average age of Shinhan credit card holders is 42.4 and 52.6 percent of them are male.

Shinhan said that it had sold two million smartphone app cards as of March. Users in their 20s accounted for 71.9 percent of card users and 21.8 percent are in their 30s.

The app card enables a smartphone user to download his or her credit card company’s app, save the credit card number and pay with the app both on and offline. Since the app allows users to make a payment with the saved credit card information, tangible cards are no longer necessary. Smartphone app card payments don’t require programs like ActiveX.

As the number of app card users grew, 14.8 percent of total online payments were made with smartphone app cards, a 9.7 percent increase since August.

Online shopping payments made with app cards tripled since August. “App card users’ monthly average spending reached 790,000 won, close to their monthly average credit card spending, 840,000 won,” a Shinhan official said. “More and more people have become smartphone users. As app card payments and its high security and convenience emerge, we project the total accumulated spending to exceed 1 billion won by the first half of this year.”

BY LEE GI-SANG [haeyoonk1311@joongang.co.kr]