By Kang Seung-woo
The central bank said Friday that the economic recovery has pushed overseas credit card spending by Koreans to a near two-year high in the second quarter.
According to the Bank of Korea (BOK), overseas credit card bills reached $1.74 billion (2 trillion won) from April to June, up 3.7 percent and 36 percent higher compared to the last quarter and last year, respectively.
The figures were the highest expenditure outside Korea since the third quarter of 2008, when the outlay with plastic cards amounted to $1.85 billion.
“The escalating numbers of overseas trips on the back of the economic rebound has promoted spending abroad,” an official of the BOK said.
Impressive exports and increasing domestic demand empowered the nation’s economy to rise 7.6 percent in the first half from a year earlier, the fastest expansion in 10 years.
Quarterly overseas spending descended to $1.1 billion in the first quarter of 2009, but it returned to $1.49 billion in the third quarter of the year and eventually to $1.68 billion in the first quarter of this year.
Despite the two year-high mark, the growth rate of credit card spending slackened from the previous quarter as the local currency weakened against the U.S. dollar, which affected trips abroad, the BOK said.
Compared with the 3.7 percent hike, credit card use rose by 11.4 percent on-quarter in the January to March period of 2010.
In the wake of the European sovereign debt crisis, the Korean won dropped an average of 1.67 percent against the greenback in the second quarter, compared with three months ago.
The number of credit card users grew last quarter, as it climbed 7.6 percent on quarter to 3.02 million, the first time to break the 3 million mark.
The BOK also said that travelling Koreans averaged $577 in overseas spending, down 3.6 percent from the preceding quarter.