The number of unused credit cards in Korea has dropped sharply over the past four years on the financial authorities' stepped-up efforts to reduce inactive cards in the market, data showed Tuesday.

After peaking at 31 million in 2011, the number dropped to 13.4 million in 2013 and 9.41 million in 2014.

It is the first time that the number of dormant credit cards fell below the 9 million mark since the association first started collecting such data in 2005.

In 2012, financial authorities took a set of measures to drag down the number of dormant cards in order to prevent credit risk to local card firms and control excessive competition to get subscribers.

They ordered local credit card issuers to automatically terminate cards that have been inactive for 12 consecutive months.

The credit card industry understands that the number of dormant cards has substantially dropped due to government policies and the drop will not be so conspicuous in the future. The drop in such cards slowed last year to slightly over 1 million.

A credit card industry source said the number of dormant cards is expected to remain at a certain level in the future.

Meanwhile, credit cards were the most favored means of payment for Koreans in 2015, accounting for over 40 percent of total private settlements, a poll showed Tuesday.

According to the survey of 2,500 citizens aged 19 or older, taken by the Bank of Korea (BOK), payments processed via credit cards accounted for 39.7 percent of the total transactions in 2015, up from the previous year's 31.4 percent.

Cash ranked second with 36 percent, down from the previous year's 38.9 percent, followed by debit cards with 14.1 percent and prepaid cards with 6 percent.

By amount, credit cards also topped the list with 40.7 percent, the BOK said, adding it is the first time for the proportion of the plastic money to break the 40 percent mark. Last year, the figure came to 37.2 percent.

Cash was the second most popular means with 29 percent, up from 26 percent in 2014, according to the poll which was conducted between August and September last year.

The average amount of cash a citizen carries was 74,000 won (US$61.58), down by 3,000 won on-year, while one person owned an average of 1.91 credit cards and 1.26 debit cards, the survey showed. (Yonhap)