April 19, 2024
Finance
Credit card firms’ net profit rises 12.3% in 2018
South Korea’s credit card firms saw their combined earnings rise 12.3 percent in 2018, helped by increased card usage and higher income from loans, the financial regulator here said on March 28.
The combined net profit of eight card issuers, including Shinhan Card, Samsung Card and KB Kookmin Card, came to 1.4 trillion won ($1.2 million) last year, up 151.1 billion won from a year earlier, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.
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The sharp rise was attributed to a combination of increased fee income, earnings from card loans and decreased loan-loss reserves.
Despite a cut in swipe fees, their commission income jumped by 600 billion won last year and loan-loss reserves rose by 212.9 billion won.
The overall credit card delinquency ratio came to 1.48 percent as of the end of last year, up 0.01 percentage point from a year ago, with that for card loans gaining 0.17 percentage point to 2.44 percent, according to the FSS.
By Ram Garikipati and newswires (ram@heraldcorp.com)
