Kakaopay Corp (377300.KS): Asia Financials Corporate Day takeaways

Research evidence excerpt

Kakaopay Corp (377300.KS): Asia Financials Corporate Day takeaways

Equity Research

24 June 2026 | 11:10PM KST

Sinyoung Park

+82(2)3788-1778 |

sinyoung.park@gs.com

Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C., Seoul

Branch

We hosted Kakaopay at our Asia Financial Corporate Day on June 24th, 2026. Discussions

were centered on payment strategy, brokerage strength and margin expansion potential.

Data-driven algorithmic models to drive digital payment growth

Management guided for continued digital payment growth for 2026E. As seen in 1Q

print, Kakaopay is seeing strong non-captive payment growth—enabled by strategic

partnerships with key merchants like Delivery Hero, Musinsa and OliveYoung.

Kakaopay’s data-driven algorithmic models such as term prediction for churn

prevention and look-alike models for targeted acquisition have helped to analayze

customer behaviors and improve user retention rates. Moreover, Kakaopay Money

portion remained high at 60% level, exceptionally higher vs. simple payment peers

and where the net margin is much higher vs. credit card transactions.

Kakaopay Sec lifting digital finance revenue contribution

Revenue contribution from digital finance services surpassed digital payment for the

first time in 1Q26 (49% vs. 46% in digital payment). Management expects continued

momentum given the ongoing retail money move and its user cultivation strategy,

inducing first-time stock investment via its seed product called ‘stock-collection’ and

by strengthening Reddit-like community service (i.e., topic-based chat rooms).

Moreover, the group has disclosed it is acquiring the remaining 27.1% stake of

Kakaopay Securities, making Kakaopay Securities a wholly-owned subsidiary.

OPM to improve further on disciplined cost control amid robust top-line growth