Earnings by South Korean credit card companies jumped 27.1 percent last year from a year earlier from a drop in bad debt expenses, the financial regulator said Sunday.

The combined net income of seven stand-alone card firms came to 1.66 trillion won ($1.56 billion) in 2013 compared with 1.3 trillion won the previous year, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.

The 2013 performance of Woori Card Co., which spun off from Woori Bank in April, was not included in the data.

The FSS attributed the strong bottom line to a sharp drop in bad debt expenses as the companies decreased provisions against bad loans and from lower loan interest rates.

Last year’s expenses for bad debt reserves fell 38 percent on year to 874.1 billion won, the FSS added. (Yonhap)