Electronic payment through smartphones is spreading rapidly across North Korea, with cash transactions increasingly giving way to digital payments in Pyongyang and other major cities such as Pyongsong, Sinuiju and Nampo, particularly among younger North Korean people.
A range of electronic payment services now operate inside the country, including Samhung e-Wallet, Jonsong, Narae, Apnal, Saebyol, Huinnun and Manmulsang. North Korea’s smartphone and mobile subscriber base has also grown steadily. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a United Nations agency that tracks global telecommunications data, North Korea recorded roughly 6.35 million mobile phone subscriptions and about 5.79 million mobile broadband subscriptions in 2024. Those figures should not be read as a direct measure of smartphone ownership among the wider population, however.
The range of uses for electronic payment is also expanding. What began as a way to buy goods or send small amounts of money has grown to include QR code payments at shops and street stalls, fares for taxis, buses and the Pyongyang metro, restaurant reservations, phone and electricity bills, grain purchase coupons and even sports lottery tickets. Footage recently filmed by foreign visitors to Pyongyang showed QR codes for multiple e-wallet services displayed not only in department stores but also at street vendor stalls and vegetable stands.
Daily NK reported on this trend in April 2025, in an article describing the expansion of electronic payment in foreign currency through smartphones and a corresponding rise in cashless transactions. Sources inside the country said at the time that payment by barcode and QR code was increasing even at individually run jangmadang stalls and shops, and that some cities and provincial capitals had stopped issuing new business permits to vendors without an electronic payment system in place. Cash or foreign currency is typically deposited at a designated location and converted into an electronic wallet balance for use.
North Korean authorities have actively promoted this shift. The country enacted an Electronic Payment Act in October 2021 and revised it again in 2023. The law states its purpose as reducing the volume of cash in circulation while increasing cashless circulation to keep currency moving more smoothly through the economy.
Why is North Korea pushing electronic payment?
Several factors appear to be driving the push toward a cashless economy.
First, authorities appear to want to draw North Korean people’s cash holdings, particularly foreign currency, into the formal financial system. Trust in the North Korean won and state financial institutions collapsed after the failed 2009 currency reform, pushing many North Korean people toward holding U.S. dollars or Chinese yuan in cash. Using an e-wallet requires depositing that cash at a designated charging station or financial institution and converting it into electronic currency. The number of locations where cash can be loaded onto a Samhung e-Wallet reportedly grew from about 200 in late 2022 to more than 700 by early 2025. Allowing foreign currency to be loaded directly onto e-wallets is significant because it gives the state an easier way to absorb hard currency that had been sitting in markets and households.
Second, electronic payment gives authorities a clearer view of market activity. Cash transactions are difficult for the state to track individually, but electronic payments leave a record of when a transaction occurred, how much was involved and who was paid. That data makes it easier to monitor commodity prices and transaction volumes and to manage tax collection and other payments owed to the state. This does not necessarily mean the state is monitoring every transaction in real time, but the technical foundation for tracking individual economic activity and market trends grows stronger as electronic payment expands.
Third, the shift appears aimed at improving the efficiency of internal economic management. Facing chronic economic difficulty and material shortages, North Korea has an incentive to cut the costs associated with printing and circulating cash and to link its commercial network more efficiently with the financial system. The Electronic Payment Act’s stated goal, reducing cash circulation while increasing cashless circulation, reflects this policy direction.
Finally, North Korea’s digitalization push is tied closely to its information control system. North Korean smartphones generally run on the Android operating system, but users cannot freely access the global internet. Services run through state approved mobile networks and a domestic intranet, and North Korean smartphones include security systems that block applications or content lacking the authorities’ digital signature. The expansion of smartphones and digital services in North Korea has not translated into greater freedom to access outside information.
The convenience of electronic payment is real, and testimony from inside the country suggests North Korean people generally view it positively because it frees them from carrying cash. At the same time, some are reportedly reluctant to keep large sums in their e-wallets out of concern that the state could examine their transaction records at any time.
What ultimately matters is not the technology itself but how it is used. Electronic payment data should not become a tool for excessive tracking of individual spending and activity beyond what is needed for basic convenience. If North Korean authorities genuinely intend to pursue digital financial modernization, they will need to pair the technology’s development with legal safeguards protecting users’ privacy, including principles that prevent state agencies from accessing or tracking people’s electronic payment records without due legal process.
Reporting from inside North Korea
Daily NK operates networks of sources inside North Korea who document events in real-time and transmit information through secure channels. Unlike reporting based on state media, satellite imagery, or defector accounts from years past, our journalism comes directly from people currently living under the regime. We verify reports through multiple independent sources and cross-reference details before publication.
Our sources remain anonymous because contact with foreign media is treated as a capital offense in North Korea — discovery means imprisonment or execution. This network-based approach allows Daily NK to report on developments other outlets cannot access: market trends, policy implementation, public sentiment, and daily realities that never appear in official narratives.
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September 11, 2026 at 08:05PM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)