Accept Korean local cards and digital wallets at checkout
Turn on Korean payment methods to let customers pay using Korean local cards, KakaoPay, Naver Pay, PayCo, and Samsung Pay. Available for items priced in Korean Won for customers in Korea, with no extra engineering effort required.
What's new?
We updated the Paddle platform to support Korean payment methods.
korea_local is a new allowed value for the payments[].method_details.type field against a transaction in the Paddle API, and there's a new underlying_payment_method field that has information about the selected payment method.
How it works
South Korea is one of the fastest-growing major economies, with a highly urbanized and tech-savvy population. It has its own unique payments market, with nine main local card networks — alternatives to Visa, Mastercard, and other international networks — and local digital wallets built into chat or other apps.
You can now turn on Korean payment methods for Paddle Checkout to let customers pay using:
- 22 Korean local card types, including all the main issuers
Once enabled, Paddle automatically presents the option to pay using Korean payment methods for customers in South Korea paying in Korean Won (KRW) — no additional configuration required.
We use a local processor partner to offer Korean payment methods at Paddle Checkout, so all payment methods are available when you turn on Korean payment methods. Customers choose to pay using Korean payment methods, then choose the local payment method they'd like to use from a list presented by our local processor partner.
As a result, we added korea_local as an allowed value for the payments[].method_details.type field against a transaction entity. We also added a new underlying_payment_method field that has information about the selected payment Korean payment method. You may see this when working with transactions using the API, as well as in transaction events that occur.
Summary of changes to fields
This is a summary of the changes to responses in the Paddle API:
| Entity | Field | Change | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transaction | payments[].method_details.type | New allowed value | Returns korea_local for Korean payment methods. |
| Transaction | payments[]. method_details.underlying_details | New field | Returns information about the underlying payment method used to pay. |
Next steps
This change is available now.
It's a non-breaking change, meaning it doesn't impact existing integrations.
To start accepting Korean payment methods, enable them in Paddle > Checkout > Checkout settings. You don't need to sign up for a Korean bank account or establish a local entity, and you don't need to make any code changes to your checkout implementation.
For testing instructions, see our payment methods overview guide.
You can work with transactions using the API to see the new payments[].method_details.type value.