In early February, Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple Pay will be made available in South Korea starting with Large Stores like KFC, Costco, Lotte Himart, Ediya, Mega Coffee and more." A Yonap report on that same day confirmed that South Korea's financial regulator stated that local credit card firms could now introduce Apple Pay. The official launch was expected to be in the middle of the first half of 2023 (March-April). Then on March 06, a new South Korean Business report claimed that Apple Pay could launch as early as the next two weeks.

Today the Korea Economic Daily reports that Apple Pay is now set to launch domestically in South Korea on Mar. 21. Apple is reportedly planning large-scale promotional events around Mar. 17 to celebrate the official launch of Apple Pay in Korea.

An industry insider familiar with the matter stated that a key high-ranking official from Apple's headquarters will visit Korea to partake in the celebrations.

The events are expected to include a countdown to the launch and a demonstration of Apple Pay payment at a large store to attract attention.

It is suspected that Korea's top two mobile payment players, Naver and Samsung, that are now in an alliance, will try to counter Apple's advertising blitz.

In other Apple news, a new Apple Store in Korea is opening on March 31 as noted in the Apple Store image below. See details of the new store here. 

(Click on image to Enlarge)