Domestic telecom companies offer customized services to woo foreign customers. Shown are KT staff introducing their company's "5G Welcome Plan" exclusively for expats. (KT)
By Aisylu Akhmetzianova
The globalization of Korean society has made the country a friendlier and more convenient place for expats and foreign tourists.
The number of foreign residents reached 2.73 million in late June, so companies are customizing services for such people to raise their convenience in daily life.
The telecommunications sector has begun to expand benefits for such customers through benefits like multilingual services.
SK Telecom's T Global program offers free overseas calls from 10-90 minutes depending on a user's usage patterns and fee rates by country. KT offers multilingual text messaging, foreign language customer service and the KT Foreigner Center to enhance accessibility.
LG Uplus has expanded the number of its stores catering to foreign nationals to 67 nationwide and accepts subscription registration documents in 17 languages. It also raised the number of customer service representatives fluent in other languages to about 170.
Convenience stores, an essential element of domestic tourism, are also using discounts and benefits to attract more foreign customers.
Since Chinese group tourists were granted temporary visa-free status from Sept. 29, GS25 has offered discounts and favorable exchange rates for payments via online Chinese platforms such as Alipay, UnionPay and WeChat Pay. The chain also from September accepted PayPay, Japan's No. 1 e-payment service, since over three million Japanese visit Korea every year.
From August through year's end, CU offers instant tax refunds to foreign tourists. Such travelers can pay for goods minus the tax when making purchases, saving them the hassle of a separate procedure before departing Korea.
The convenience store chain CU offers cashback deals to foreign tourists who use its instant tax refund service. (BGF Retail)
Banks are also offering customized financial products like loans specifically for expats.
KB Kookmin Bank's KB Quick Send is a new service for overseas remittance targeting foreign investors.
Shinhan Bank in August opened a branch for foreign nationals in Ansan, Gyeonggi-do Province, a city with a high expat population, offering multilingual consultations and weekend business hours.
Hana Bank's Hana Foreigner EZ Loan is a credit loan exclusively for foreign workers, and Woori Bank's Global Desk exclusively for international customers is at 12 branches nationwide.
BNK Busan Bank in September rolled out an insurance inquiry service exclusively for foreign workers in a first for a provincial bank in Korea. Using the exclusive app, customers can easily check at any time the details of their mandatory insurances including those for departure guarantee, repatriation cost and accidents.
Expats from March were allowed to use their mobile residence cards to open bank accounts and conduct financial transactions.
A customer uses Trans Talker, an artificial intelligence interpretation service for foreign shoppers, at the Lotte Department Store branch in Seoul's Songpa-gu District. (SK Telecom)
Convenience services in daily life for foreign residents have also seen upgrades.
SK Telecom in April launched the artificial intelligence-based interpretation service Trans Talker at Lotte Department Store, Busan Transportation Corp., Yeongnam University and Shinhan Bank, offering service in 13 languages including Korean, English, Japanese and Chinese.
If a foreign tourist asks a question in his or her native tongue into a microphone in front of a transparent screen, the translated sentence appears in Korean on the screen of the information desk. A staff member responds in Korean and the response is translated into the customer's language.
The service has received kudos for greatly reducing the inconvenience of foreign visitors to shopping areas, tourist attractions and public offices.
aisylu@korea.kr