Apple Pay has been set to come to South Korea for a while now. In November, some promo images led people to believe the service would launch at the end of that month, but a few days later, the country’s Financial Supervisory Service said it needed to discuss a few questions before making Apple’s payment system available in South Korea.
Last Friday, the Financial Supervisory Service gave Apple and Hyundai Card the green light to debut the service in the country, and now both companies announced they will still wait a few more months to launch Apple Pay in South Korea.
“We look forward to collaborating with Apple to introduce Apple Pay to S. Korea,” Hyundai Card said in a statement. “We will share more details in the coming months.” Hyundai Card is a credit card service unit of Hyundai Motor Group.
According to Nikkei Asia, the publication reached out to Apple, which gave a similar statement: “We look forward to bringing Apple Pay to [South] Korea.” Interestingly enough, the company usually doesn’t tease upcoming releases, showing that at least Apple has been planning to bring the service for a while now.
With the launch of Apple Pay in the country, it could threaten Samsung Pay’s dominance, as it currently holds 80% of the market share in the country’s mobile payment market, according to local media.
When Apple’s payment system launches in South Korea, the country will be the 10th Asia-Pacific region where Apple Pay is available. So far, users in Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, Macao, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan can take advantage of this service.
Last year, Apple added its payment system in Qatar ahead of the Fifa World Cup. The service works with several different banks. Also, in 2022, Apple Pay was made available in Malaysia, Moldova, Argentina, Peru, and Armenia. Chile, rumored to receive the service for a while, is still nowhere to support it.
BGR will report whether Apple’s payment system has started working in South Korea and which banks and cards will support it apart from Hyundai.
