The Financial Supervisory Service said on September 11 that the number of dormant cards for six-month period from January this year has been 23.57 million, accounting for 20.4 percent of all credit cards issued (115.34 million).

 

The credit card companies with the largest number of dormant cards were Shinhan Card (4.77 million), KB Kookmin Card (30.8 million), and Hyundai Card (2.90 million). Other credit card issuers such as Samsung Card (2.62 million) and Lotte Card (2.14 million) had also more than 2 million dormant cards. As for the ratio of dormant cards in total cards outstanding, Hana-SK Card took the No. 1 position with 29.0 percent, followed by Hyundai (22.0%), Woori (21.5%), Samsung (19.9%), and Shinhan (17.6%).

 

A Financial Supervisory Service official said, "The dormant card ratio is higher for latecoming card companies, which means that they are engaging in wasteful competition to win as more customers as possible." The total cost to the credit card companies to issue unused cards is estimated at 500 billion won last year alone.