Shinhan Card, KakaoBank to team up for PLCC

South Korea's Shinhan Card Co. and the domestic internet bank KakaoBank Corp. said on Wednesday that they signed a business agreement to develop and jointly market a private label credit card (PLCC).

The two companies plan to launch the KakaoBank PLCC for customers using KakaoBank in the first half of next year.

A PLCC involves a card company signing a contract with a specific brand to provide differentiated benefits to customers of that brand.

The KakaoBank PLCC will leverage Shinhan Card's big data infrastructure to analyze consumption and lifestyle patterns in their 20s and 30s, integrating these insights with KakaoBank's products to introduce a new service.

This partnership aims to enhance service connectivity based on digital platforms, offering various services such as card performance tracking, benefit details, and additional services.

Shinhan Card boasts a customer base of 32 million through its integrated membership, while KakaoBank has 24 million customers.

Despite overlapping customers, the differences in the primary customer demographics of both companies suggest that this could become the largest PLCC business in the country.

In the wake of Samsung Financial's partnership with KB Kookmin Bank to expand its integrated financial app Monimo, the alliance between Shinhan Card and KakaoBank is expected to accelerate the mobile transition in the card business.

Write to Mi-Hyun Jo at mwise@hankyung.com