South Korean Cards

2026-08-28 18:16

Credit cards have been a common payment method in South Korea since the 1960s, and remain the preferred payment method today, accounting for more than 50% of the online e-commerce payment volume. In a country where 95% of the population holds bank accounts and a credit card penetration rate surpasses 60%, accepting South Korean card payments enables you to reach nearly the entire population of over 50 million.

Supported card brands

In contrast to international cards, the majority of South Korea's local cards are issued by nine primary companies. Prominent brands include Shinhan, BC, Samsung, KB, Hyundai, Lotte, NH, Hana, and Woori. Of the over 110 million cards issued locally, single-badged cards account for around 45%, while co-badged cards, which also display international card scheme logos, make up approximately 55%. Antom's solution supports both single-badged and co-badged local cards.

The following are all supported South Korean local card brands:

Shinhan Card, Hyundai Card, Samsung Card, Lotte Card, Hana Card, KB Kookmin Card, BC Card, NH Nonghyup Card, Woori Card, IBK B.C., Gwangju Bank, KDB Industrial Bank, Saemaeul Geumgo, Shinhyeop, Citi Card, Post office deposit insurance, Korea Federation of Savings Banks, Jeonbuk Bank, Jeju Bank, Kakao Bank, K Bank, Toss Bank, SH Suhyup Bank.

Properties

The following table lists the product properties supported by South Korean Cards:

[1] For the two payment flows for South Korean Cards, refer to User experience for more details.

Transaction limit

[1] Note that card issuers might change this limit according to different internal policies.

User experience

Note: The following payment flows on different terminals are reference only, and represent this payment method's flow on different terminal types. For supported merchants' terminal types, consult Antom Technical Support.

Antom offers two types of payment flows for South Korean Cards:

Issuer-authenticated payment: The buyer is redirected to the bank page of the chosen issuer to complete the payment. Payment is completed via different processes, such as scanning a QR code, or inputting card or bank account information, depending on the particular bank's capabilities. You are required to provide these payment flows for merchant industries such as gaming and top-up services.
Non-authenticated payment (Key-in): The buyer needs to manually key in their card details as per the typical international card payment process.

Note: For South Korean Cards-installment function, merchants can design how to show 2-12 installments for buyers, or merchants can redirect buyers to Antom's middle page for buyers to choose 2-12 installments. When buyers choose a specific installment plan, the common practice in the Korean market is that merchants do not show buyers the corresponding plan's interest rate on the checkout page. Instead, Korean buyers can check their interest fees on the card issuers' monthly bills or statements.

The following figures show the journey of paying with South Korean Cards in different scenarios.

Issuer-authenticated payment

This section shows the user experience of API-only integration under the issuer-authenticated payment.

Bank list provided by merchant

Bank list provided by Antom

Non-authenticated payment

This section shows the difference of user experience between API-only and SDK integration under the non-authenticated payment.

API integration

For API-only integration, the user experience of paying with South Korean Cards between the first-time and subsequent payments is different.

First-time payment

Subsequent payments

SDK integration

For SDK integration, the user experience of paying with South Korean Cards between the first-time and subsequent payments is different.