Korea Credit Data (KCD) said on Tuesday the total number of business sites that have adopted services provided by the Korea Credit Data community led by the company (KCD, KPN, IMU, KCS, KMX) has topped 3 million.

A Ministry of SMEs and Startups survey shows there were 5.96 million small merchant businesses nationwide as of 2023. By simple calculation, that means more than half of small merchants have adopted small-business services provided by the Korea Credit Data community.

The Korea Credit Data community services began with Cashnote. Cashnote started in April 2017 as a KakaoTalk chatbot that notifies users of credited card-sales deposits and later added functions including a simple ledger, missing-deposit checks, consolidated sales 조회, an owner assistant, POS integration and B2B goods purchasing.

The Korea Credit Data community said all companies provide services for small merchants and sole proprietors. Korea Evaluation Information (KCS), established in 2021, is the country’s only credit rating agency dedicated to sole proprietors.

IMU, acquired in 2022, is a POS and kiosk specialist that develops both hardware and software in-house. Korea Payment Networks (KPN) is a payments specialist that provides online and offline payment infrastructure and also offers additional services it calls differentiated, including customer management and faster settlements.

Services provided by the Korea Credit Data community have been adopted by 3 million business sites, and annual transaction volume has grown to 667 trillion won in scale. The company said the milestone came 8 years and 9 months after Cashnote was launched.

KCD Chief Executive Kim Dong-ho said, “Korea Credit Data started by empathising with owners’ problems, and now it has built an ecosystem for small merchants and has grown into a de facto standard service for South Korea’s small merchants.” He added, “The Korea Credit Data community is preparing new services to create further change and innovation. We will continue to make only services for owners.”