(Yonhap)
South Korea's credit card firms saw their combined earnings rise 23.1 in 2020, helped by higher income from loans amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the financial regulator said Monday.
The combined net profit of eight card issuers, including Shinhan Card Co., Samsung Card Co. and KB Kookmin Card Co., came to 2.02 trillion won ($1.8 billion) last year, up 380.1 billion won from a year earlier, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
The sharp rise was attributed to a combination of earnings from card loans and decreased loan-loss reserves.
Due to sluggish consumption over social distancing rules, their commission income fell by 133.6 billion won last year.
However, their income from card loans rose by 190.6 billion won last year, according to the FSS.
The number of credit cards issued came to 113 million as of the end of last year, up 2.5 percent from a year ago, with that of debit cards falling 0.8 percent to 110 million.
The value of credit card purchases rose 0.6 percent on-year to 705.3 trillion won last year.
The overall credit card delinquency ratio came to 1.29 percent as of the end of last year, up 0.14 percentage point from a year ago, according to the FSS. (Yonhap)