A Review of the Incheon E-eum Card

A Review After Using the Incheon E-eum Card for a Month

• One-line summary: Recommended for people living alone in Incheon

• Three-line summary

  • You can get a 6% discount on the amount you spend.
  • It can be used at convenience stores, hospitals, and small shops in Incheon.
  • It cannot be used at supermarkets, department stores, or Coupang.

I’m a guy living alone near Inha University. One day in April, I was quite startled to see promotional banners for the Incheon E-eum Card hanging all over the place. They claimed it gives you a whopping 6% discount on what you pay. As a former business student trained in traditional management, I couldn’t believe it. These days, a company is doing well even with just a 5% operating margin, so a 6% discount? Impossible. Surely it must be false and exaggerated advertising. No doubt all sorts of fine-print restrictions would be written in tiny letters at the bottom of the card brochure, and rather than getting a 6% discount, places that even accept the card would be rare, right? But since it was something the Incheon city government was doing, I searched Naver for reviews just in case. All I found was a flood of promotional news about card issuance having started, with not even a single power blogger’s advertising post disguised as a review showing up in the search. I couldn’t even figure out how to get the card issued. Was the promotional budget insufficient? With that thought, the Incheon E-eum Card faded from my mind.

The Incheon E-eum Card started catching my eye again in early May. I went to Juan Station to take the subway, where E-eum Card promotional ambassadors (presumably college students) were busy promoting the Incheon E-eum Card and issuing cards on the spot. Thinking that something was finally getting underway in earnest, one day as I was passing through Juan Station, the subway was seriously delayed and I suddenly had time to kill. That day too, the E-eum Card ambassadors were busy promoting the card. Figuring I had nothing to lose, I had a card issued. Unfortunately, there were no pretty seal-illustration cards available, so I just got a plain yellow one. I loaded 10,000 won as a test, but I was seriously worried about whether I could actually spend that money. Even at this point, not a single proper review of the E-eum Card had been posted online.

That night, nervously, I tried to make a payment using the E-eum Card at a 7-Eleven convenience store. Surprisingly, the payment just went through without any particular issue. It was just like the credit card I always use. As soon as I paid, a push notification came from the E-eum Card app that the card ambassador had installed on my smartphone, notifying me that 6% of the payment amount had been accumulated as points. Curious about whether using points would also work smoothly, I immediately bought an ice cream using my points. Only the amount remaining after deducting the points I used was charged. It was an amazing experience.

Because in my entire life I had never seen an app made by a public institution run smoothly.

This is how the Incheon E-eum Card became the card I use the most. Since I do most of my spending in the nearby area, that’s just how it turned out. The 6% discount is a benefit that other cards find hard to match. The cost of accumulating the 6% in points is probably covered by the central and local governments, and since increasing fiscal spending during a recession is only natural, I have no complaints about that. But I wonder whether it’s a big disadvantage for Incheon citizens who don’t use this card or who don’t spend much within the Incheon area. Of course, they are actively promoting it and urging people to get and use the card. In any case, since I’m reaping great benefits, it’s all good for me.

This post was written without receiving any compensation, such as a writing fee, whatsoever.