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In Korea, your face is the wallet — and 10% of the country is sold
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In Korea, your face is the wallet — and 10% of the country is sold

www.trendwatching.com·Liesbeth den Toom·21 days ago
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Toss launched face-scan payments in September 2025 and now has close to 5 million users in South Korea. Will privacy-wary consumers elsewhere follow suit? In South Korea, a growing number of shoppers are walking up to convenience-store counters, glancing at a small camera, and walking out with their purchase. They don't need to tap their phone, reach for a card or open an app. Toss, the Seoul-based fintech super-app used by nearly two-thirds of the country's 51 million people, launched its FacePay service nationwide in September 2025. As reported by the Financial Times , 4.8 million users have signed up since, close to 10% of the population, and face scanners now sit on counters in roughly 330,000 retail outlets, mostly cafés, restaurants and convenience stores. The technology itself isn't new. Facial-recognition payments have existed for years; Shinhan Card piloted one in Korea back in 2020, and Amazon and Mastercard have run their own experiments.…

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