Internet banking users rise

Korea’s internet banking service rose at a fast clip in the first quarter with both the number of users and daily transactions reaching record highs, central bank data showed Tuesday.

In the three months that ended on March 31, the number of Internet and smartphone banking service users came to 125.32 million, up 2.3 percent from the previous quarter, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK).

The number is the sum of all registered users of 16 internet and smartphone banking service providers in South Korea, including commercial banks.

The average number of daily transactions processed via the internet and smartphones came to 94.1 million in the first quarter, up 5.9 percent from the previous quarter, while the average amount of money processed through such means dropped 4.6 percent to 41.91 trillion won ($37.3 billion).

Among them, the number of daily transactions processed via smartphones jumped 7.3 percent on-quarter to more than 57.3 million, with the amount of daily transactions also surging 8.3 percent to 3.62 trillion won over the cited period, according to the BOK.

The number of smartphone-based banking service users rose 3.6 percent from three months earlier to 77.3 million as of end-March.

Korea has a population of 51 million, but some people have multiple smartphones.

The BOK said that 40.7 percent of Korea’s internet banking services is used for depositing, withdrawing or remitting money.

Banks’ bad loans soar

Non-performing loans at Korean banks fell 0.04 percentage points in March from three months earlier, as lending extended to troubled firms declined, official data showed Tuesday.

Bad loans held by local banks reached 23.7 trillion won ($21.1 billion) at the end of March, or 1.38 percent of total lending, according to the quarterly data by the Financial Supervisory Service, the regulator.

The end-March ratio was the lowest figure since the end of 2012, when the ratio stood at 1.33 percent, the regulator said in a statement.

Bad loans extended to businesses totaled 21.7 trillion won at the end of March, accounting for 91.6 percent of total non-performing loans, according to the data.

Although the overall ratio has been on a steady decline, the bad-loan ratio for the shipbuilding and shipping sectors stood at 11.56 percent and 4.68 percent each at the end of March, it said.