Banking Buddies
In September this year, BC Card signed an agreement with Bank Mandiri, the largest national bank in Indonesia, to set up a joint venture. The idea is to open up the overseas market by making use of its own payment and settlement processing techniques for affiliated store management and credit card settlement. The relationship between the Korean credit card company and the Indonesian bank dates back to May 2011, when the former provided business consulting for the latter.
The establishment of the joint venture is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year. The joint venture involves setting up a credit card system, supplying terminals and a marketing platform, and managing affiliated stores and sales slips.
The export of BC Card’s payment and settlement processing techniques has drawn the attention of many as the first overseas business of a Korean credit card company and a way of profit diversification and sustainable growth Korean credit card firms can refer to.
BC Card is moving ahead with a number of projects for convenient fintech as well. For instance, the company has presented a way of preventing the cloning and fraudulent use of credit cards by its security service dubbed Token, which allows a virtual credit card number to be used in a payment process.
In addition, it is working on biometric identification for application to its Mobile ISP service and the like, while discussing the application of iris recognition with firms in the industry. Its Union Pay Mobile Quick Pass card is the only credit card in Korea that is based on near-field communication (NFC) technology.