[Photo] S. Korean banks printing less and less checks in age of e-payments and 50,000 won bills

South Korea produces only around one tenth of the bank checks it produced just a little over 10 years ago. Before the 50,000 won (US$42.82) bill, mobile apps, and widespread credit card use, it bank checks were South Koreans’ main way of paying large sums of money. While South Korean banks printed between 1.5 and 1.7 billion checks between the late 1990s and early 2000s, this dropped to around 1 and 1.2 billion in the mid-2000s. In 2018, the figure dropped to around 1.24 million.