Card issuers target growing foreign resident market with new products, services

Foreign residents take part in a Chuseok-themed songpyeon-making experience, crafting flower-shaped rice cakes, at the Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority Global Center, Tuesday. Yonhap

Credit card companies are increasingly targeting foreign residents, offering discounts and multilingual support, to tap into new sources of growth amid declining profits, industry officials said Friday.

Previously, these companies mainly targeted Koreans traveling abroad, but they are now turning their attention to foreign nationals living in the country.

NH NongHyup Card recently unveiled a new debit card tailored to foreign nationals.

Available to those aged 12 and above with an alien registration card, the card features a postpaid transportation function and offers a variety of discounts at both domestic and international merchants.

Cardholders receive a 5 percent rebate on spending at retail stores, restaurants, medical facilities and on public transportation, while digital content subscriptions earn a 10 percent rebate.

To extend benefits internationally, the card also offers a 2 percent rebate at overseas merchants and waives ATM withdrawal fees abroad up to twice per year.

Hana Card has introduced a multilingual chat support service for foreign customers.

Customers can type in their native language while agents reply in Korean, with an artificial intelligence-powered translation system providing real-time interpretation. The service currently supports seven languages — English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian — and is expected to expand to 16 languages.

Credit card companies are turning to foreign residents to offset shrinking profits, as growth opportunities among Korean citizens have become limited due to falling merchant fees and intensifying domestic competition. This has led firms to develop products and services specifically for foreign residents to expand into this emerging customer base.

The strategy is supported by a growing foreign resident population in Korea, driving higher demand for financial services. According to data from the Ministry of Justice, the number of foreign residents reached a record 2.73 million as of June.

“Competition for domestic clients is stiff, so we are focusing on expanding our business to the steadily increasing number of foreign residents in the country,” an official from one of the major card issuers said.