Korea's Internet banking service industry continued to rise at a fast clip in the first quarter with both the number of users and daily transactions reaching record highs, central bank data showed Tuesday.

In the three months ended March 31, the number of Internet and mobile banking service users came to 119.8 million, up 2.5 percent from the previous quarter, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK).

The number is the sum of all registered users of 17 Internet and mobile banking service providers, including commercial banks, securities and insurance firms.

A steep rise in the number of smartphone-based banking service users helped the overall number increase, the BOK said.

The number of smartphone-based banking service users rose 5 percent from three months earlier to 68 million as of end-March, while the total number of mobile phone-based banking service users dropped 6.1 percent to 71.9 million.

Smartphone-based banking services also helped keep the number of transactions growing.

The average number of daily transactions processed via the Internet and mobile phones came to 85.99 million in the first quarter, up 7 percent from the previous quarter, while the average amount of money processed through such means dropped 2.6 percent to 41.23 trillion won ($34.81 billion).

The number of daily transactions processed via smartphones jumped 12.4 percent on-quarter to about 51 million, with the amount of daily transactions also surging 7.3 percent to 2.87 trillion won over the cited period, according to the BOK. (Yonhap)