2025 Domestic Payment Market Comprehensive Analysis: Card Approval Amount 1,266 Trillion Won, Expansion of Unmanned and Non-face-to-face Payment
How the 2025 Domestic Payment Market is Changing As the payment market undergoes rapid transformation, establishing payment strategies for businesses ...
How the 2025 Domestic Payment Market is Changing
As the payment market undergoes rapid transformation, establishing payment strategies for businesses on time has become a core management priority. The domestic card approval amount in 2025 reached 1,266 trillion won, growing 4.7% year-over-year, with the healthcare industry recording a 7.8% growth rate—the fastest among all sectors. This signals more than just sales growth; it indicates structural changes in the payment environment itself. As the transition to a cashless society accelerates, new payment methods such as unmanned payments, non-face-to-face payments, and QR code payments are becoming normalized, and both merchants and consumers have reached a point where they must adapt to these changes.
This article is an analysis prepared by Jaiwoo Shim, CEO of TheKL Link, based on 4 years of business planning, sales experience, and expertise in payment systems. It provides a comprehensive overview of the scale, growth rate, and key trends of domestic and international payment markets in 2025, along with response strategies for each industry.
Domestic Card Payment Market Size and Growth Rate
The domestic card payment market is a 1,266 trillion won annual scale—one of the world's largest card-using markets. The annual card approval transaction count reached 29.78 billion, maintaining a steady upward trend from 1,161 trillion won in 2023, 1,209 trillion won in 2024, to 1,266 trillion won in 2025.
Key Point: The domestic card payment market continuously sets new records annually, recording stable growth of 4-5% per year.
Rapid Growth in PG Service Usage: Expansion of Non-face-to-face and Online Payments
PG (Payment Gateway) service usage amounts are increasing at a pace far exceeding domestic card market growth. Daily average PG usage increased from 1,279.3 billion won (2023) to 1,554.2 billion won (2025)—a 21.5% increase over two years—maintaining double-digit annual growth rates of over 9%.
Key Point: PG-based non-face-to-face and online payments are expanding at more than twice the speed of overall card market growth (4.7%).
Unmanned and Non-face-to-face Payment Terminal Trends and Industry-Specific Response Strategies
The payment terminal market is undergoing multi-layering transitions—from wired countertop POS to wireless mobile terminals, smart POS, and QR-based payments. Small merchants such as cafes, academies, and clinics prefer wireless terminals to reduce installation costs and maintenance burdens, while restaurants and franchises are accelerating smart POS adoption for integrated order management, payment processing, and sales management.
Key Point: Payment terminals are diversifying into customized solutions based on business type, with free initial installation support emerging as a key competition point.
Payment Cost Structure and Hidden Fixed Cost Issues
The payment burden perceived by merchants cannot be judged solely by card fee rates. When terminal rental fees, monthly fixed management fees, communication charges, and maintenance costs accumulate, actual expenditures can be significantly higher than stated fee rates. For example, when monthly card sales are 15 million won and total payment-related costs are 300,000 won, the actual cost ratio is 2%, but when terminal rental and management fees are added, it rises to 2.5-3% levels.
Key Point: Actual monthly expenditure = (fees + rental + communication + management + maintenance) ÷ monthly card sales × 100, and this figure is the accurate basis for comparing contract conditions.
Settlement Cycle Improvement and Cash Flow Optimization
From 2025, same-day settlement (D+0) or next-day settlement (D+1) options are expanding, while conventional long-term settlement methods of D+3 or longer are losing competitiveness. Particularly in food service, accommodation, and medical service industries where peak-season cash flow management is critical, settlement speed directly impacts operational efficiency.
Key Point: 1-2 day settlement cycle reduction improves annual current asset turnover by 5-10% and significantly reduces peak-season operational funding burdens.
Industry-Specific Payment Solution Selection Criteria
Small merchants such as cafes, academies, and clinics, high-value transaction-focused medical institutions, and beauty services where customer repeat visits are critical—each industry has unique payment requirements. Therefore, selecting customized payment solutions reflecting industry characteristics is the first step toward cost reduction and operational efficiency.
Key Point: Hospitals' average annual transaction amount is 3 billion won—over 10 times that of general small business owners—making dedicated solutions tailored to high-value, non-covered service, and recurring payment characteristics essential.
Core Indicators of Domestic Payment Market Summary
The following are core performance indicators providing a comprehensive understanding of the 2025 domestic card payment market:
| Item | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Growth Rate |
|------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
| Card approval amount (trillion won) | 1,161 | 1,209 | 1,266 | +4.7% YoY |
| Card approval transaction count (hundred million) | 287.7 | 289.8 | 297.8 | +3.1% YoY |
| Daily average PG usage amount (hundred million won) | 12,793 | 14,238 | 15,542 | +9.2% YoY |
| Daily average PG transaction count (ten thousand) | 2,922 | 3,010 | 3,364 | +11.8% YoY |
| Healthcare industry growth rate | - | - | +7.8% | 1st among all industries |
| Annualized PG usage amount (trillion won) | - | - | ~567 | +9.2% YoY |
Payment Environment Inspection 6-Step Process
Step-by-step inspection method to determine whether current contracts are appropriate and identify improvement possibilities:
Frequently Asked Questions on Payment Market Changes
Q1: What is the biggest payment cost problem merchants currently face in 2025?
A: Even when stated fee rates are low, terminal rental fees, monthly management fees, and communication charges accumulate, resulting in actual expenditures far higher than expected. For example, even with a 1.8% fee rate contract, when monthly management fees of 30,000 won, rental fees of 20,000 won, and communication charges of 15,000 won are added, the actual cost ratio based on 15 million won monthly sales rises to 2.4%. Therefore, comprehensive comparison of total costs is essential.
Q2: What are the specific impacts of unmanned and non-face-to-face payment market growth on merchants?
A: As PG-based non-face-to-face payments increase at more than twice the overall card market growth rate, offline terminals alone are no longer sufficient. When online and offline sales become separated, integrated management becomes impossible, and customer data tracking is interrupted. Therefore, integrated solutions enabling real-time confirmation of online and offline payments on a single dashboard are becoming a differentiating factor.
Q3: Are there actual cash flow improvement effects from changing settlement cycles to same-day settlement (D+0)?
A: Yes. Based on 15 million won monthly card sales, shortening the settlement cycle from D+3 to D+1 increases average current assets by over 30 million won (based on twice-monthly payments). Particularly in food service, accommodation, and medical institutions with significant peak-season concentrated transactions, this 2-3 day cash turnover improvement greatly alleviates seasonal funding shortage problems. Additionally, refund time for cancellations and refunds is reduced by an average of 2 days, leading to improved customer satisfaction.
Q4: Why are payment conditions different for hospitals versus general merchants?
A: Because hospitals' average annual transaction amount is 3 billion won—over 10 times that of general small business owners. Larger transaction amounts mean larger absolute fees, so PG and VAN providers can offer lower fee rates. Additionally, hospital-specific requirements such as non-covered service payment processing, installment payments, foreign patient settlement, and EMR system integration involve additional technical costs reflected in fee rates. Therefore, hospital-dedicated payment solutions have completely different structures from general PG and VAN services.
Conclusion: 2025 Payment Environment Inspection and Cost Optimization Strategy
The 2025 domestic payment market continues stable 4-5% annual growth while setting new records each year, while PG-based non-face-to-face and online payments record ultra-high growth of over 9%. This signals that consumer payment habits are changing rapidly, and merchants unable to adapt to market changes face direct customer loss.
Particularly as new contract conditions such as settlement cycle shortening, free terminal support, and zero monthly fixed fees become competition focal points, existing merchants must reassess their current contracts. Simply calculating actual cost ratios based on recent 3-month settlement statements and contracts, and eliminating unused add-on services and duplicate costs can achieve annual cost savings in the millions of won range.
TheKL Link is a payment consulting specialist in central Seoul providing comprehensive support from payment environment diagnosis to optimal solution design, one-stop installation, and operation and expansion. We offer free diagnostic services analyzing settlement data accumulated over 1+ years and comprehensively comparing current contract conditions with new proposals. For payment environment optimization consultations, contact 010-2397-5734 or jaiwshim@gmail.com.
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