Digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Alipay are gradually replacing cash and credit cards with more and more people browsing and purchasing goods by tapping and swiping on their smartphones. Kakao Pay, codeveloped by Internet giant Daum Kakao and ICT solutions developer LG CNS, is one of the services spearheading the mobile payment industry in South Korea. After launching its mobile payment se...

Archaic systems, inconvenient processes and a great deal of patience. These were the conditions that brought the founder of fintech startup Viva Republica to the exciting and growing arena of financial technology. Viva Republica is one of only a handful of fintech startups in South Korea, where strict regulations and excessive security measures remain major hurdles for market development. Lee S...

Global tech companies’ entry into the nation’s mobile payment market may hinder the growth of early-stage fintech startups, industry watchers say. Fintech, a convergence of finance and technology, is a range of new financial services offered through information technology platforms. Amid slow growth in the local fintech industry, global tech giants including America’s PayPal and China’s Alipay h...

Each year tends to be a mixed bag of good and bad incidents, but the silver linings were hard to see this year. Tragedy dawned on the morning of April 16 when the ill-fated Sewol ferry sent a distress call, with 476 people on board, many of whom were young students from a high school in Ansan. Koreans were briefly relieved at one point in the day to hear the news that most of the passengers wer...

[Politics] Political reforms fizzle Politicians wax and wane, but none have done so as quickly and dramatically as Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy. In 2014, Ahn rose to the heights of being cochairman of the main opposition, despite having little real powerbase. However, with his “new politics” achieving little and his party’s election failures, he r...

[Conglomerates] Conglomerates face changes The hottest topic in Korean big business circles this year was no doubt a generation shift that was brought to surface by the poor health of Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee, who suffered a heart attack in May. Lee is said to be recovering, but is still unable to return to the company. As the 72-year-old business magnate’s hospitalization dragged on, ...

On any given Seoul subway train on any ordinary weekday morning, the majority of the passengers are engrossed in texting, reading and watching videos on their smartphones. But the gadgets are not the only difference between them and members of the older generation, who used to read newspapers and books on their way to work. Younger Koreans are increasingly becoming addicted not to prime-time KBS...

South Korea’s cable TV program providers are seeking to diversify the export destinations for their content from Asia to Europe and North America. According to the Korea Cable Television and Telecommunications Association, new export targets include Italy, France, the Netherlands, Canada and the United States. Over the past few years, their content has gained popularity mostly in East and Southe...

Kim Jun-hyung, a 32-year-old Seoulite, used to think local TV dramas were for “ajummas” ― a Korean term for middle-aged housewives ― until he accidentally watched the first episode of tvN’s “Misaeng (Incomplete Life).” “I could relate to the characters instantly because I am just as overworked as they are,” he said about the popular show, which is about the everyday lives of office workers at a ...

Three years after the four general programming cable channels were launched, concerns remain over the fairness and objectivity of their broadcasting content. With a large proportion of their broadcasting time set aside for news reporting primarily on domestic political affairs, the conservative channels have churned out discourses that mostly represent the right-leaning social, political circles...

The increase in cable television networks in South Korea has given rise to an array of new personalities, including ones from other countries. Among them is Robin Deiana, a French national with Italian ancestry who has made Korea his second home. Known among Korean fans by his first name, Deiana is best known as a panelist on the popular JTBC show “Nonsummit,” a program featuring expats living i...

Chun Mi-jin, 36, who lives in an apartment complex with more than 1,000 households in western Seoul, has recently teamed up with a friend to buy a house. They bought a small, 30-year-old detached house with three bedrooms, located in Yeonhui-dong neighboring Yonsei University, for 550 million won ($499,600) to build a new home. “My friend and I made the joint investment to achieve our long-awai...

A box-shaped apartment complex has been a dominant housing option for Koreans for decades. The government has encouraged the development of such complexes, considering them as the most efficient type of housing to accommodate a large number of people in the country given its limited land. The popularity of apartments has was the most profitable investment tool in Korea until the housing market ...

The Association of Young Architects launched the HOUSHOW initiative, a dream house-building project, in 2012. For the first project, it selected six candidates among 80 applicants and then met with them in person to discuss the design of their dream house. As a gift, the project offered them a floor plan, a perspective drawing and a model so that they could build the actual house one day. Below i...