KakaoBank nets 15 million users for digital certificate that enables IDV, authentication

South Korean firm KakaoBank has announced that its digital certificate service has surpassed 15 million users. A piece in Business Korea notes that the KakaoBank Certificate has exceeded that number in the one year and ten months since its launch.

The KakaoBank Certificate is a service that enables access to financial transactions, authentication and electronic signatures through the KakaoBank mobile app. The certificate also serves as an identity verification instrument for logins across accounts.

Per the release, it is currently accepted by public institutions such as the National Tax Service’s Hometax for year-end tax settlement, Government24, and the National Pension Service, as well as private services such as the Megabox cinema chain, the Gmarket and Zigzag shopping services, and Melon, a music streaming platform.

A statement from KakaoBank says the firm “will continue to expand partnerships with various public and lifestyle services to enhance customer convenience.”

Parent company Kakao, a huge part of life in SK, trying to regain shine

KakaoBank is one of many brands operating under the umbrella of Kakao Corp., a major South Korean tech firm headquartered in the unlikely city of Jeju-si, the capital of Jeju Island. Kakao’s reach touches everything from messaging and internet to AI and biometrics to healthcare and entertainment. Forbes calls it “one of the K-pop industry’s most prominent players.” According to Reuters, its combined assets are estimated to be worth 86 trillion won (US$62 billion).

A recent article in Nikkei Asia says “life without Kakao is still unimaginable for many in South Korea” – but asks, can the “symbol of innovation regain its shine?” In July, its billionaire founder Kim Beom-su, briefly South Korea’s richest person, was arrested and indicted on charges of stock market manipulation related to the company’s investment in a top K-pop agency.

Kakao Enterprise has had AI algorithms atop NIST list

Kakao’s enterprise arm, Kakao Enterprise, launched in December 2019 as a spin-off of Kakao’s in-house independent company (CIC) AI Lab. In 2022, its Kakao-008 facial recognition algorithm’s high accuracy rates vaulted it to the top of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s 1:1 Face Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT) for matching photos in the kiosk category, with top 5 results for mugshot photos, border and ‘visaborder’ photos. It has also done additional work in the biometrics space.

Article Topics

biometric authentication  |  biometrics  |  electronic-signature  |  identity verification  |  Kakao  |  South Korea