Busan's Rich Have Only Malls to Spend Money on

Malls are more popular among the rich of Busan than big spenders in the capital, and they mostly blow their spare cash on luxury labels.

Shinhan Card analyzed the spending patterns of its top 0.1 percent of customers in Seoul and Busan and concluded that the main reason is that the capital still offers a much greater variety of things to do.

The rich of the southern port city accounted for a whopping 17.5 percent of total credit card spending on department stores and retailers last year, while Seoul's wealthy were more restrained and accounted for only 10.3 percent.

Busan nabobs spent 25.9 percent of their credit card spending at department stores, compared to 27.3 percent on convenience stores. But in Seoul the ratio was 18 percent to 31.1 percent.

But in terms of total money spent, malls accounted for 76.2 percent of rich people's spending in Busan, compared to 64.7 percent among wealthy people in Seoul.

If the rich went to the mall, they bought luxury labels. Hermès purchases accounted for 15.2 percent of VVIPs' credit card spending last year, Chanel for 11.6 percent and Louis Vuitton for 7.6 percent.

The likely reason Busan's rich spent more money in malls than their counterparts in Seoul is that most of their spending was at Shinsegae Centum City, a mammoth high-end department store in the affluent Haeundae district.

A Shinhan Card staffer said, "Busan doesn't have the range of choices for conspicuous consumption that Seoul has, so spending tends to be concentrated in a couple of big malls. The wealthiest clients are very dependent on malls there."