Mobile banking subscribers up 27.4% in 2015

The number of people accessing bank accounts through mobile devices rose 27.4 percent in 2015, Bank of Korea data showed Monday.

Mobile banking service subscribers stood at 76.5 million at the end of 2015, while Internet banking grew 13.2 percent to 116.8 million users. The tallies include overlapping subscribers.

Smartphone-based banking, in particularly, posted a 34.4 percent jump in users to 64.8 million, topping the 60 million mark for the first time.

Central bank data also showed solid growth in the use of debit cards in Korea, with daily payments rising by 17.9 percent to an average of 368 billion won last year. The total number of debit cards issued was also up 5.9 percent, reaching 115.3 million units.

Payments with credit cards grew 5.5 percent to 1.68 trillion won, with the number of cards issued up 0.8 percent to reach 93.1 million units.

By Lee Sun-young (milaya@heraldcorp.com)