Over 30 Million Sign Up for Mobile Banking

The number of people using mobile banking services surpassed 30 million last year for the first time as smartphone use grew explosively.

The Bank of Korea on Thursday said a total of 37.05 million people had signed up for mobile banking services as of the end of last year, an increase of 13.3 million people from the previous year. Two thirds of them were smartphone users.

The number of smartphone users rose from 22.58 million at the end of 2011 to 32.73 million.

Last year, 12.95 million transactions were made by mobile every day, amounting to W961.5 billion, and 98 percent of them were by smartphone (US$1=W1,086).

The total amount of mobile banking transactions averaged W1.72 trillion a day in the fourth quarter of last year, surpassing W1 trillion for the first time.

In all, 86.43 million people signed up for Internet banking services including mobile banking last year, up 16 percent on-year.