<Anchor>



Two years ago, the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the government introduced a payment system called 'Zero Pay', saying that it would reduce the burden of payment fees for small business owners. In three years, 48 ​​billion won was spent and the number of franchisees increased to 1.2 million, but it turned out that more than half of them had never made a zero-pay payment.



This is the exclusive report by Lee Ho-gun.



<Reporter>



Introduced in 2019, 'Zero Pay' is a method of using a mobile phone app to pay like a debit card or recharge a local gift certificate.



At most, the payment fee of merchants is half of the credit card companies, and stores with annual sales of 800 million won or less are exempted from it.



The budget for the construction and promotion of infrastructure such as terminals alone increased to about 48 billion won, and the number of franchisees increased to 1.2 million in three years.



I looked around a restaurant in Seoul to see if it was actually used a lot.



[Restaurant 1: (Are there many customers who come and pay with Zero Pay?) Once a day? Almost none.]



[Restaurant 2: (Are there many customers who paid zero-pay?) No, almost none.] The



same goes for convenience stores.



[Convenience store: (Are there many people who pay with zero pay?) There are not many fortresses. Almost.] As of the



end of last August, 55% of all affiliated stores showed zero-pay payment amount of 0 won.



In more than half of the places, not a single payment has been made so far.



[Restaurant 3: (Are there many people who pay with zero pay?) No.]



Despite this, the Small and Medium Venture Business Department, which led the zero pay business, repeats the saying that it will be effective when there are 2 million affiliated stores.



[Han Moo-kyung/Rep. of People's Power (National Assembly Industrial Self-Defense Committee): We need to come up with a proper use plan so that it can be of practical help to small business owners, not just to increase the number of



franchisees

.]

It is pointed out that it is necessary to prepare a carrot book to induce payment.



(Video coverage: Hwang In-seok, video editing: Jeong Seong-hoon)