Card firm battle intensifies between Samsung, KB

By Kim Bo-eun

Samsung Card CEO Kim Dae-hwan

Samsung and KB Kookmin Card are engaging in heated competition to become the No. 2 card firm after Shinhan, amid the leading company's shrinking market share.

Shinhan's market share in terms of credit sales in the second quarter came to 21.33 percent, down 0.64 percentage points quarter-on-quarter. Shinhan has been the leading card firm among the seven local companies after integrating with LG Card in 2007, but has been seeing its market share fall since the fourth quarter of 2018.

Kookmin Card took second place in the first quarter with a market share of 17.71 percent. It was the first time for Kookmin Card to come second since it became a separate entity from KB Kookmin Bank in 2011. However, the position was taken over by Samsung in the second quarter, which took up a market share of 18.16 percent. Both saw their market shares grow from the previous quarter.

Samsung's market share in the second quarter was backed by earnings from corporate clients, growing 13 percent quarter-on-quarter.

Meanwhile, KB Kookmin Card has been engaging in an aggressive sales approach since the incumbent CEO Lee Dong-cheol took leadership in 2018.

KB Kookmin Card CEO Lee Dong-cheol

Kookmin Card has expanded its business in car installment financing. It made 45.2 billion won in profit from the business in the first half of this year, ranking second after Shinhan Card in the car installment finance business.

Kookmin and Samsung are also concentrating efforts on their respective mobile payment platforms, as financial platforms such as KakaoPay and Naver Pay encroach on the business territory that formerly belonged to card firms.

Kookmin is preparing to launch KB Pay, a mobile payment platform, within this month. The platform will offer various financial services, including overseas remittance and currency exchange services.

Samsung Card recently launched an automatic payment service when using drive-thru services at Starbucks. Those who register their license plate number and credit card information with Starbucks will be able to utilize the auto payment system when they purchase coffee via drive-thru.

Hyundai Card, which follows Samsung and Hyundai Card in market share, has also seen its share grow since the fourth quarter of 2018. Its market share came to 16.6 percent in the second quarter, a 0.32-percentage-point year-on-year growth.

Hyundai Card entered an exclusive partnership with Costco last year. It has focused on private label credit cards targeting individual customers. Hyundai Card has issued five private label credit cards this year.

“We are making efforts to diversify revenue, by initiating new projects and expanding business overseas,” a KB Kookmin Card official said.

“KB Pay will offer customers diversified financial services, as an upgraded version of the existing mobile application payment system.”