President Suh Joon-hee of BC Card.

BC Card is at the forefront of the transition from the “plastic” age to the mobile financial settlement age. The company is the top expert on mobile settlement processing in Korea.

As a member of the KT group, the credit card firm has come up with a number of reformative settlement technologies to overcome the existing financial realm as a result of its continuous research in the Fintech area, the core issue in the credit card industry that needs urgent development.

In June, BC Card unveiled a core technology (source code) for the issuance of “mobile cards” based on the KS specification at a meeting with all financial firms and start-ups for the sake of the development of the Fintech industry. The event was hailed around the country as a reformative move that no other financial firm in the country could have done.

The company’s announcement that it would share its technology for mobile financial settlement with other credit cards for free will suspend any investments to develop the technology and reduce the royalty payments to international-brand credit card firms.

BC Card has been active in diverse areas of Fintech. Shopping ID, One Click Service, One-Touch Settlement Service and Pay All are some of the reformative technologies that the company has developed.

Pay All Service is a system that can make payments at shopping malls without downloading a settlement program. It already has over 1 million subscribers.

Strengthened security is key to the safe mobile settlement technology, and “Token,” is the representative solution. It uses “temporary” numbers.

As the “Token System” with the international specification (EMV) uses temporary numbers when making settlements, it can prevent illegal use and copying of the system

The credit card company has also been engaged in the development of other important technologies for mobile settlements.

BC Card's international credit card is becoming popular among customers because of its low fees and low membership charge.

The payment service provider affiliated with telecommunications giant KT, said that those who signed up for the BC Global Card reached 4 million, two years and seven months after the card's debut in April 2011.

"Many customers joined our service within a very short time thanks to its various benefits," BC Card Senior Vice President Lee Jae-yong said. "We plan to expand alliances overseas and give more benefits to customers.”

Customers are satisfied with the firm's move. With a low annual membership charge of 2,000 won, customers can also avoid international fees, a benefit other global card companies do not offer.

For example, when customers order a product from an overseas shopping mall, they do not need to pay an international commission fee, which is usually a burden for Korean customers who use services from foreign credit card firms.

"An increasing number of customers now shop online with our card," another BC official added.

BC Card has alliances with Discover Card of the United States, JCB of Japan, UnionPay of China and other global credit card companies whose cards can be used in 103 countries all over the world including Croatia, Brazil, Hungary and Colombia.

The BC Global Card is the only Korea-based card to offer global card services similar to Visa, MasterCard and JCB credit cards.

BC Card was founded in 1982 as a credit card association for local banks. The company has about 27 million card users and 2.5 million franchises as of July 2013.

Two models in an ad for PayAll Payment System whose uses are up 41.3 percent in volume with daily frequency of its use up 37.9 percent, so far this year, according to the ad.(Photos:BC Card)