Smartphone banking on rise, for small amounts

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Smartphone banking on rise, for small amounts

The volume of smartphone banking transactions is growing rapidly, but the value of each exchange remains small compared with financial business conducted through personal computers, data from the Bank of Korea (BOK) showed on Monday.

The volume of banking transactions made via smartphones, which makes up the majority of mobile banking transactions, was 41 million as of the end of June, up 2.2 percent from the previous quarter’s 40.1 million.

The number of clients who signed up for smartphone banking has also risen nearly 7 percent during the second quarter of this year to 57.5 million, from 53.9 million in the first quarter.

Smartphone banking transactions accounted for 53.5 percent of the total internet banking transactions, but the majority or 92 percent of the transactions were for reviewing account activities.

In terms of the value of the transactions, mobile banking accounted for a mere 6 percent or 2.4 trillion won ($2 billion) of the total internet banking transactions, which amounted to 40.5 trillion won in terms of value.

“We are seeing more older clients starting to use mobile banking services as more of them use smartphones,” said Kim Jeong-hyeok, a BOK official in charge of electronic finances.

“But many of them still feel unsure about the safety of the smartphone-based financial transactions, and tend to use personal computers or visit bank branches in person to make transactions that require moving a large amount of funds.”

As of the end of June, the number of clients who had signed up for internet banking services, which includes mobile banking, at 18 major financial institutions was 113.27 million, up 4.3 percent from the previous quarter’s 108.61 million.

The number of clients who signed up for mobile banking was 69.4 million, up 5.5 percent from the previous quarter’s 65.7 million.


BY PARK JUNG-YOUN [[email protected]]
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