Are international contactless cards / Apple Pay accepted in South Korea?

4/28/2019 5:06:40 AM

As of 2019, there are no participating banks in Korea (for Korea issued cards) with Apple Pay. This closest source I found as a reason for no/low adoption in practice of “contactless” as it’s known in UK and European bank cards is that the Korean cards industry wants to establish its own NFC payments standard separate from EMV that would allow cheaper payment terminals.

So while it’s not possible to use (as on 2019) to use Apple Pay or contactless EMV directly, there are a few options:

  • Samsung Pay: Supports a mode that emulates the magstripe at the back of the card, and might work with terminals within Korea which seem to have wide support for this method. YMMV.
  • T-Money, CashBee etc: Primarily transportation cards that are preloaded with credit, but seem to be accepted in some shops for payments.

The other widely accepted option is QR code based payment using Kakao Pay, but this can only be used with a KakaoTalk account linked to a Korean phone number (tourists might not have this), plus ID verification with a Korean resident ID. The linked cards for topping up Kakao Pay needs to be issued within the country too.

4/22/2019 2:01:07 AM

There’s a rumor that local card companies are not accepting Apple Pay because of fee disputes with Apple and Visa/Mastercard (in Korean)

It doesn’t exactly state (foreign) Apple Pay transactions are denied, but I think this might be a factor why the local companies are denying such transactions.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

About me

Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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