KakaoPay, which achieved its first full-year profit last year, plans a broad expansion this year across retail, investment banking, AI, payments and digital assets.

KakaoPay posted 50.4 billion won in operating profit and 55.7 billion won in net profit last year, achieving its first full-year profit. All business divisions grew evenly, while financial services revenue rose 59 percent from a year earlier to account for 40 percent of total revenue. In particular, KakaoPay Securities’ stock trading value jumped 159 percent, setting a record quarterly performance.

Building on the turnaround, KakaoPay plans to strengthen a virtuous cycle in which revenue growth naturally leads to profit improvement.

BROKERAGE FOCUS ON RETAIL AND IB; CONTRIBUTION TO KDX CONSORTIUM

With KakaoPay Securities’ contribution growing, the brokerage business set out a growth strategy with retail and investment banking as its two pillars. Soon-wook Han (한순욱), head of operations, said it will raise user engagement around three tracks: expanding new account openings, improving active-customer conversion rates, and upgrading services by reflecting customer feedback.

It also plans to refine its customer funnel through differentiated community features and AI investment information. It aims to convert simple trading customers into repeat users, increasing time spent on the platform and trading frequency.

The company also cited the possibility of a recovery in South Korea’s stock market as a key momentum. It plans to apply a proven success model from its overseas stock services to domestic stock services and its credit provision business. It also plans to strengthen cross-selling with non-stock products such as pensions, individual savings accounts and funds to support customers’ comprehensive investment portfolio construction.

In the investment banking business, it is moving away from a real estate brokerage-centered revenue structure and working to secure diverse revenue sources. It plans to contribute to structuring beneficiary certificate products by joining the KDX consortium (Korea Exchange and Koscom), in line with discussions on legalising tokenised securities (STO). KakaoPay is listed as one of the largest shareholders in the consortium. Han said he expects it will be able to contribute to designing beneficiary certificate products that users find attractive.

Based on improved business indicators, KakaoPay aims for revenue growth of more than 50 percent and additional operating profit growth compared with 2025 through cross-selling and user-focused service revamps.

ACCELERATING AI AND DIGITAL STRATEGY

KakaoPay’s AI strategy is being rolled out in line with the Kakao group’s broader “AI transition”. Jung-ho Park (박정호), head of services, said KakaoPay will participate as a key partner in the finance and consumption area in the initial version of “Kanana in KakaoTalk”, an AI service within KakaoTalk.

It will first connect the “Find my own benefits with AI” feature, which has been validated in its own app. It also plans to add financial and health-linked services based on health data in the future.

In the short term, it will focus on expanding service exposure and attracting traffic. A full-scale increase in total payment volume is expected to emerge from the point when Kakao’s agentic commerce becomes active.

To that end, KakaoPay is jointly designing with Kakao an “agentic payment” experience in which AI-recommended products lead to actual purchases and payments, going beyond providing payment methods.

PAYMENTS A CORE BUSINESS; STABLECOINS A MID- TO LONG-TERM STRATEGY

Payments were also presented as a core growth axis. Seung-jun Baek (백승준), head of business, projected payment revenue growth in 2026 in the mid- to high-single digits. In online payments, it will strengthen synergies with key affiliates such as Kakao Commerce and Kakao Mobility. From the first quarter, Pay Money will be introduced in some Kakao Mobility services to absorb high-frequency payment traffic, and will later be expanded sequentially to taxis.

For overseas payments, it aims to maintain double-digit growth in both online and offline channels based on partnerships with global big tech companies. Following Android-based NFC payments, it will introduce iOS NFC payments in the first half to significantly improve overseas payment accessibility, including in Europe and North America.

The integrated travel platform “Voyager”, scheduled to launch in the first quarter, is cited as key to a strategy to link the entire process from pre-trip to local payments into the KakaoPay ecosystem.

Digital assets and stablecoins are one axis of its mid- to long-term strategy. CEO Won-geun Shin (신원근) said it approaches stablecoins not as a new investment product, but as a technical means to make existing payment, remittance and settlement infrastructure more efficient.

Alongside operating a group-level consultative body, it is pursuing cooperation with domestic and overseas external partners. It is reviewing use cases focused on practical use, including efficiency improvements in cross-border remittances and settlements, and repeated and conditional payments. KakaoPay plans to seek differentiated opportunities as the executor that advances internal structures without changing the user experience.

A KakaoPay official said it will continue vertical expansion of existing businesses and efforts to strengthen data- and traffic-based businesses, while steadily preparing for next-generation business areas such as stablecoins, blockchain and STO. The official said it will also actively seek opportunities to realise multifaceted synergies from AI-based services within the Kakao group.