Samsung Card has officially thrown its hat into the financial super-app arena with its integrated app, Monimo. Last month, the company declared a “one-app” strategy by consolidating services from Samsung Financial Networks affiliates\u2014including Samsung Life, Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, and Samsung Securities\u2014into Monimo. However, it faces the twin challenges of trailing Shinhan Card’s Super SOL in monthly active users (MAU) and overcoming the structural limitation of having no bank affiliate.<\/p>\n
According to financial industry sources on the 20th, Monimo’s MAU reached 10.6 million as of last month, narrowly behind Super SOL (approximately 11.1 million), the super-app that Shinhan Financial Group revamped last month. Since both figures reflect the impact of aggressive marketing campaigns immediately following their respective super-app transitions, industry observers note that medium- to long-term metric trends will be needed to determine a true winner.<\/p>\n
Samsung Card launched Monimo in April 2022\u2014a relatively late start compared to major financial group-affiliated card companies that introduced integrated platforms between 2020 and 2021. At the time, a roughly one-year delay in MyData business licensing prevented the app from capitalizing on launch momentum. Despite this, Monimo surpassed 10 million MAU in July, approximately four years and three months after launch, proving its external growth.<\/p>\n
Samsung Without a Bank vs. Shinhan With a Bank<\/p>\n
The key variable in the super-app competition is the presence or absence of a bank affiliate. In a financial ecosystem where most activities\u2014credit card settlement, stock investment deposits, loan disbursement\u2014are completed through bank accounts, a bank serves as the core infrastructure that drives platform traffic and customer lock-in.<\/p>\n
Shinhan Card is building its financial value chain on the account base of Shinhan Bank, Shinhan Financial Group’s largest affiliate. It is pursuing a dual strategy: maintaining its own Shinhan SOL Pay app while simultaneously supporting Super SOL’s growth. In contrast, Samsung Financial Networks has no in-house bank affiliate. Samsung Card is filling this gap through an “open ecosystem” strategy, indirectly incorporating deposit functions such as parking accounts through partnerships with commercial banks.<\/p>\n
A financial industry source commented, “The most important factor in choosing a financial platform is whether it includes the customer’s primary bank. If specific service gaps become apparent or customers are forced to use multiple platforms, expected benefits can only be measured conservatively.”<\/p>\n
Differentiation Through AI Agents and Stablecoins<\/p>\n
Samsung Card is betting on technological superiority. With the goal of evolving Monimo from a general integrated financial platform into a “next-generation digital financial platform,” the upcoming AI agent is a core pillar. It will serve as a hub connecting Samsung Financial Networks and partner services through conversational AI. The speed at which the AI agent can expand the range of financial tasks it can handle is expected to determine the platform’s competitiveness.<\/p>\n
Integration with digital asset businesses is another point of differentiation unique to Samsung Card. Samsung Card is a strategic investor that, along with Samsung Securities and Samsung SDS, acquired a 4% stake in the virtual asset exchange Dunamu. Efforts to incorporate a Korean won stablecoin-based payment ecosystem into Monimo are expected to accelerate going forward\u2014a move aimed at simultaneously securing leadership in new businesses and delivering a novel payment experience.<\/p>\n
A Samsung Card representative stated, “Beyond simple digital transformation, we are connecting finance and non-finance through AI, data, and platforms to create customer value innovation and new growth engines together. We plan to apply innovative technologies such as AI and stablecoins to financial services to provide differentiated value and expand usage scale.”<\/p>\n
Remaining Challenges: Service Completeness and App Performance<\/p>\n
Monimo still has significant hurdles to clear before becoming a true one-app platform. Since the integrated app’s launch, app reviews have been dominated by complaints about service navigation and processing speed. Optimization issues, including slow app loading and asset update speeds, are consistently mentioned. Customers who previously used only specific services may experience a noticeable decline in performance.<\/p>\n
Service completeness is another challenge. Samsung Card has discontinued its standalone app but continues to operate key services on the web. If customers are forced to toggle between Monimo and existing platforms when redeeming credit card benefits, the direction of the one-app strategy could be diluted, observers note.<\/p>\n
Some critics have gone so far as to call the integration a “numbers-building exercise.” The view is that without customer convenience as a prerequisite, the company is focused on inflating subscriber counts and MAU metrics across group affiliates. Samsung Card carried out a Monimo app overhaul in December last year and says it has transferred 100% of the existing Samsung Card app’s functions. A Samsung Card representative said, “Currently, 100% of the existing Samsung Card app’s functions have been migrated to Monimo, and all tasks previously handled in the standalone app can now be processed there.”<\/p>\n
Given the strategic importance of the Monimo business, Samsung Card has elevated the dedicated organization under its Digital Strategy Division to headquarters level. The Monimo Headquarters is led by Executive Vice President Hwang Sung-won, who oversees the platform’s planning, development, and operations. Samsung Financial Networks affiliates jointly contribute an annual investment of approximately 100 billion won (approximately $71.7 million) toward infrastructure maintenance and enhancement.<\/p>\n
The ultimate battleground will be whether Monimo can establish itself as customers’ primary financial platform. Key priorities include streamlining the process by which customers discover personalized services and benefits, and fully internalizing individual app functions within Monimo to reduce frequent screen transitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samsung Card has officially thrown its hat into the financial super-app arena with its integrated app, Monimo. Last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1532,5083,64997,49308,127,38964,32173,223,11560,10205,11770,64996],"class_list":["post-126218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-samsung","tag-ai-agent","tag-dunamu","tag-hwang-sung-won","tag-monimo","tag-samsung","tag-samsung-card","tag-samsung-financial-networks","tag-samsung-group","tag-shinhan-bank","tag-shinhan-card","tag-stablecoin","tag-super-sol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}