What is halbu?
Halbu is the installment option built into Korean credit cards. Shoppers choose a number of months at checkout and the card issuer spreads the payment. Card companies recorded 148.3 trillion won in installment purchases in 2025, while interest-free periods have become shorter.
In detail
Halbu is the installment option built into Korean credit cards. At checkout, the shopper chooses to pay in full or in two to twelve monthly installments, and the card issuer spreads the payment. The merchant is paid as for a normal card payment.
Scale
The seven full-service card companies recorded 148.3 trillion won in installment purchases by individual customers in 2025, up 3.5%, and earned 3.6 trillion won in installment fees.
Interest-free periods are shrinking
Card issuers offered up to 12 months interest-free at the end of 2022, but as funding costs rose, even six-month interest-free plans became hard to find by 2026. Installment fee rates range from about 8.8% to 19.9%.
Other deferred options
- Fintech pay-later, small and capped at 300,000 won per person per month, through Naver Pay, Kakao Pay and Toss.
- Mobile carrier billing, which adds purchases of up to 1,000,000 won to the next phone bill.
What it means for payment operators
For operators serving merchants that sell to Korea, halbu is not a separate method but a card feature. The payment gateway must pass the installment choice to the issuer. Working with a Korean gateway that supports halbu, and showing installment options at checkout, matters for higher-ticket merchants.