How closed payment system holds back Korea's global reach
When Patrick Storey moved to Korea in 2021 to work as the country manager for Visa, he didn't expect his first obstacle to be at a subway station. He got up early to catch the train to work and tried to tap his contactless Visa card at the gate — just like he did in Singapore, his previous posting. But no, that didn't work here. He then went looking for a ticket machine. Again, no luck — the machine didn't accept cards for payment. On a Monday morning, that meant wandering around in search of an ATM. Eventually, he found one, withdrew some cash, and returned to the ticket machine. But once more, no success — the machine rejected the bill and spat it out. "The transit system in Korea is fantastic. The trains run on time. They're clean, they're efficient, but the payment can be a pain if you're not Korean," Storey told The Korea Times in a recent interview. Korea has the culture the world wants, but not the payment system. Foreign nationals often struggle to take Korea's public transportation, because it doesn’t support what's known as an "open-loop payment system" — a system tha
