The number of subscribers to smartphone-based mobile banking services topped 60 million in South Korea in the third quarter, central bank data showed Monday.

Smartphone banking users of 16 local commercial banks and the Korea Post reached a combined 60.08 million as of end-September, up 4.4 percent from 57.52 million three months earlier, according to the data compiled by the Bank of Korea.

The number of smartphone banking clients has been on a steep rise for the past few years, from 37 million in 2013 to 40 million in the first quarter of 2014 and 50 million in the first quarter of 2015.

 The total mobile banking subscribers rose 3.6 percent on-quarter to 71.88 million at the end of September, accounting for 62.3 percent of all Internet banking users of 115.29 million, including those who access banking through personal computers.

Smartphone banking is also on a roll in term of transaction value.

The amount of daily transactions processed via smartphone averaged 2.5 trillion won ($2.1 billion) in the July-September period, up 4.5 percent from three months earlier.

The BOK data showed that people, however, were still reluctant to process major transactions via their smartphones.

While mobile banking accounted for 54.6 percent of all Internet banking transaction volume, the amount processed via mobile platforms accounted for only 6.3 percent of the total. (Yonhap)