By Kim Jae-kyoung
Staff Reporter
A global credit card firm executive says that Korea's small business market is emerging as a segment of opportunity for credit card issuers.
In an interview with The Korea Times, Peter Gordon, vice president of commercial payment solutions for MasterCard, said that the multinational card firm will expand its presence here by exploiting the small business market.
``We have a lot of interest not only in Korea but also in other parts of Asia. The small business segment is relatively untapped,'' he said, noting that the retail card market here is getting too competitive and saturated.
``Many small business people use consumer credit cards to help their payments, but their products are more attuned to a consumer,'' he added.
He pointed out that Korea is different compared to what's happening in other countries.
``Banks in other places now recognize that the small business market is a good segment to target credit card products. They realize that consumer credit card is more reward or consumer-related,'' he said.
``A lot of banks now in other parts of Asia have been looking at developing products specifically for small business,'' he added.
Gordon, who recently visited Seoul for a workshop on corporate payment solutions with partner banks here, explained that small businesses prefer cash-back to reward points, but in Korea, banks do not provide the choice of rewards they are looking for
``Currently, there are no cards for small business in Korea, not specifically for small business. They are more tailored to a corporate concept, not a small business segment,'' he said.
``Some recent research in another market showed that a small business owner using a consumer credit card is not feeling any recognition,'' he added. ``So they look for other products. Then that really forces the banks and issuers to develop what their customers need.''
The veteran card expert said that another purpose of his visit was to introduce its ``Multinational Corporate Program,'' a new corporate payment solution designed to improve business efficiency, and transparency of financial data.
``In the era of globalization, when more companies are establishing subsidiaries in different parts of the world, multinational firms need to effectively manage their day-to-day expense reports from its various offices globally,'' he said.
He stressed that the program offers timely and easy access to expense-management reports that will allow multinationals to track and compare expenses from their various offices.
``What we always see in economic slowdown or slight downturn is that companies monitor expenses. When the budget is tight, you need to manage people's expenditure on a monthly or weekly basis,'' he said. ``The new corporate payment solution program may offer an opportunity for multinationals to reduce their expenditure by up to 20 percent.''
The corporate payment solution is based on Smart Data which is the main database to collect information from credit card issuers across the planet and to offer information to its clients. This makes it possible to track any transaction around the world within 36 hours.