BC Global Card is the first local proprietary brand in South Korea, allowing cardholders to use their credit cards abroad without paying service fees to international network brands such as Visa and Master Card.

This brand attracts customers with two unique fortes, one that it does not charge the cardholder with a 1% International Service Assessment Fee (ISA fee) for overseas card use, and second being that this card requires an annual fee of 2,000 won, equivalent to that of domestic use-only cards.

Global Card is currently available in Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK), SC First Bank, Daegu Bank, Busan Bank, and Kyongnam Bank. Other client banks including Woori Bank will start issuing mid-April.

Customers can apply for BC Global Card by requesting BC Global brand on the existing card product. The cardholder can enjoy BC Global Card’s specialized benefits as well as existing value-added services applied to the original card product.

Domestic value-added services provided by BC Global Card include ▶ maximum 20% discount in top language institutes, restaurants, fitness centers, and spas ▶ 5% discount in international hotel and flight reservations using BC Tour travel agency.

International value-added services include ▶ 5% discount of ETS TOEFL registration fees (available in www.ets.org, max. 10,000 won a month) ▶ 5% discount in top international online shopping malls such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Victoria’s Secret, and American Eagle (for online purchase, max. 10,000 won a month per merchant) ▶ discount in department stores - 10% in Macy’s, 15% in Bloomingdale’s, a free one-day membership in Sam’s Club ▶ 5% admission fee discount in theme park Six Flags (USA) ▶ 5~10% discount or $20 (weekday), $15 (weekend) discount in Hertz Rent-A-Car.

On top of these services, there will be an additional commemorative service provided in Shilla Duty Free Shops (excluding online mall). Cardholders are in for a maximum 10% discount off total purchases paid by BC Global Card until February, 2012.

BC Global Card provides services through America’s Discover, Japan’s JCB, China’s CUP and Diners Club merchants and ATM network. As of this day, BC Global Card can be used in 103 countries all over the world including the US, China, Japan, Australia, England, Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan, etc. The next step for BC Global Card is to develop an alliance network around the globe and continue expanding its international acceptance.

In Korea, surging number of international-branded card issuance has instigated an increase in fee volume for card companies. Although overseas use of credit card constitutes only 1.21% of the entire credit card sales volume (6 trillion won out of 493 trillion won), local card companies have been burdened with fees charged from international brands, which even require issuers to pay for domestic transactions that are not processed by their networks. From 2007 to June 2010, the sum of paid fees has reached a total of 378 billion won. Research has also shown that 87.3% of international-branded cards have never been used abroad.

According to BC Card, “BC Global Card, with inexpensive annual fee and zero ISA fee, helps cardholders to use their cards more rationally. Reducing the unnecessary issuance of international-branded cards will decrease the outflow of national wealth and ultimately, provide an opportunity for local card industry to create better quality service.”