BC Card recently applied for a trademark for a new in-house card. As BC Card's payment network revenue has fallen recently, the company is accelerating efforts to expand revenue from its own cards, which appears to be part of a product lineup expansion.
According to the Kipris patent search system on the 14th, BC Card filed four trademark applications on the 6th under the name "ABC Card." The product classification for the trademarks falls under "credit cards with embedded IC chips." BC Card plans to add the ABC Card brand to the product lineup of its in-house "Baro Card." It is still in the prelaunch stage, and details such as the benefits to be offered have not yet been decided.
BC Card's core business of payment network revenue is gradually declining. The payment network business, BC Card's key revenue source, refers to developing and operating a merchant network, purchasing sales slips, and handling settlement and payments between merchants and member companies. Last year, BC Card's acquiring operations (payment network business) revenue was 279.66 billion won, down 7.8% from the previous year (303.34 billion won). During the same period, the share of payment network business revenue in total revenue also fell from 79.7% to 76.9%.
Accordingly, BC Card needs to expand in-house card sales to diversify revenue. Although BC Card's in-house card fee revenue has continued to grow, it has hovered around 1% of total sales for five years. On an annual basis, after the in-house card business was fully launched in 2021, the fee revenue ratio was 0.3%, but last year it rose only to 1.5%.
President Kim Yeong-woo of BC Card, formerly of KT, who took office on the 14th of last month, carried out personnel appointments this month across departments, including the card business division. Kim is expected to soon unveil strategies such as expanding revenue models to improve sales.
A BC Card official said, "We applied in advance to secure priority over the trademark, and it is part of a strategy to strengthen benefits for our in-house card to attract more members."