Per-capita credit card spending abroad drops in 2nd quarter

South Koreans' overseas credit card spending hit a record high in the second quarter of this year, the central bank reported.

Their credit card expenditures abroad reached US$2.53 billion in the April-June period, up 1.6 percent from the previous quarter and an increase of 10.9 percent from the same period last year, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

The figure broke the previous record of $2.52 billion tallied in the fourth quarter of last year.

The number of credit card users abroad totaled 5,785,000, up 2.4 percent from the January-March period, but the per-capita spending dropped 0.8 percent or $4 to $436, the report said.

By Josephine Liu Yan Yee

Park Sae-jin swatchsjp@ajunews.com