Shinhan Card is expected to introduce Apple Pay as early as the first quarter of this year. Shinhan Card recently updated related services to introduce Apple Pay, and the financial authorities are reviewing the terms and conditions of related products.
According to the financial authorities on the 20th, the Financial Supervisory Service is checking the status of Shinhan Card's introduction of Apple Pay-related products. Since the review of the terms and conditions for the Apple Pay service itself was approved in the first half of last year, this review is said to be for Apple Pay-only products. Apple Pay-only products are specialized cards that apply additional benefits when paying with Apple Pay, planned by card companies that are latecomers to the service to attract new members.
Shinhan Card is said to be preparing to launch the Apple Pay service and Apple Pay-only products with a target of March. Currently, Hyundai Card is the only card company in Korea that offers Apple Pay.
Shinhan Card completed the technology development and testing needed to link with Apple Pay last year. If you update the Shinhan Card application (app) now, you can see guidance on registering Apple Pay. The menu to register a card with Apple Pay has not yet been activated.
KB Kookmin Card, which is preparing Apple Pay on a similar timeline to Shinhan Card, also received a prior review for service launch and is preparing Apple Pay-only products. However, Kookmin Card is expected to take more time to launch the service, as information on its Apple Pay-only products was exposed externally twice last year. If Shinhan Card, which vies for No. 1 and No. 2 in the card industry, introduces Apple Pay, the offline easy-payment landscape centered on Samsung Pay is also expected to change.
Meanwhile, this review is proceeding separately from the FSS's inspection of Shinhan Card. At Shinhan Card, some employees last month secretly extracted and leaked merchant information for years to solicit card sign-ups. In response, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) began an on-site inspection of Shinhan Card at the end of last month, but the results have not yet been released.