True
Issuance of the Nolwol Card, a payment card reserved exclusively for foreign nationals, has surpassed the 10,000 mark, according to an announcement from the issuing bank. The bank's original release could not be retrieved directly, as the announcement page is not indexed by search engines, but the milestone was corroborated by two separate press reports carrying the bank's statement.
A review covering 11 primary sources traced the 10,000-card figure back to the issuing bank's own announcement. Because the source page remains unreachable through standard search, confirmation rests on two independent media outlets that each reported the bank's stated issuance count. The two accounts align on the threshold, and no competing or contradictory figure surfaced during the review. The caveat is worth stating plainly for readers: this is indirect confirmation, resting on press reproduction of an official statement rather than the statement itself, and the newspaper's rating reflects that limitation.
Access to everyday payment cards has been a persistent friction point for foreign residents and newly arrivals in Korea, who frequently lack the local credit history and documentation that domestic issuance typically requires. A dedicated foreigner-only product is aimed squarely at that gap, and a five-figure issuance count points to measurable uptake in its early phase. For a market where card penetration is a proxy for how smoothly foreign visitors and workers plug into the local economy, the number โ modest by domestic standards, notable for a niche product โ signals genuine demand rather than a launch-only bump.
With the bank's figure consistently reported across independent outlets and no contrary evidence on record, the claim that Nolwol Card issuance has exceeded 10,000 cards is judged True.
