Kakao Pay vows to expand e-bills service

Electronic payment service provider Kakao Pay said Thursday it aims to expand its service to enable bills to be created, delivered and paid online to spearhead Korea’s aim to transform into a paperless society.

Capitalizing on the group’s popular mobile messenger platform KakaoTalk, Kakao Pay is likely to dominate the e-bills market by inviting more e-bill distributors to its platform, Lee Seung-hyo, chief product officer of Kakao Pay, said in a seminar held in Seoul.

“At the nascent stage of the e-bills market, (Kakao Pay) has focused on distributing public and private institutions,” Lee said. “In the long run, Kakao Pay will become a critical tool for every Korean to receive electronic documents as paperless era unfolds.”

Kakao Pay, a payment arm of internet giant Kakao, launched Korea’s first electronic bill presentment and payment service in 2016, where the group’s flagship mobile messenger platform KakaoTalk served as a channel for public institutions to distribute bills and collect payments.

So far, some 100 institutions have made use of Kakao Pay’s e-bill distributing channel. Some 53 million e-bills were presented through the online channel in 2019, up twofold compared to the previous year.

Kakao Pay has also been expanding its presence in the digital certificate business. Since June 2017, Kakao Pay has issued some 15 million electronic certificates to allow end-users to get consent or approval on electronic documents. The business is anticipated to grow as the nation is scheduled to scrap the public e-certificate system starting November.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)