Busan is good

Busan Metropolitan City Expands ‘Dongbaekjeon Cashback Rate up to 13%’ from September to Support Small Business Owners

내용

Busan Metropolitan City (Mayor Park Heong-joon) announced that, starting in September, it will raise the cashback rate of the local currency Dongbaekjeon up to 13% to stimulate local consumption and increase small business owners’ sales.

To boost domestic consumption, the city invested its budget from January to August this year to implement a refund policy that ▲increased the monthly cashback limit from 300,000 KRW to 500,000 KRW, and ▲raised the cashback rate from 5% to up to 7%.

As a result, Dongbaekjeon issuance reached a total of 992.6 billion KRW from January to July this year, up about 23.1% compared to the same period last year, invigorating local consumption and energizing the regional economy.

Building on this achievement, the city will strengthen consumption promotion in the second half of the year by expanding the Dongbaekjeon cashback rate up to 13% beginning in September.

From September to October, the cashback rate will be applied at 13%, with differentiated rates based on annual sales to provide more benefits for citizens and additional advantages for small-scale business owners. This continues the “differentiated by sales amount policy” implemented since July 2023, designed to focus benefits on small-scale merchants, which account for 90% of all affiliated businesses.

< Dongbaekjeon Cashback Rates by Annual Sales >

• ●Merchants with annual sales of 1 billion KRW or less: 13%

• ●Merchants with annual sales of 1–3 billion KRW: 11%

• ●Merchants with annual sales exceeding 3 billion KRW: No cashback

※ Total affiliated merchants: 175,532 / Merchants with annual sales under 1 billion KRW: 159,514 (as of August 2025)

The operating policy for November and December will be announced separately after monitoring issuance trends.

Additionally, the city will expand the 13% cashback benefits for two months (September–October) to services where Dongbaekjeon can be used, including ▲Busan small business public delivery app “Ttaenggyeoyo” ▲public taxi-hailing app “Dongbaek Taxi” ▲and the online regional product mall “Dongbaek Mall.”

Meanwhile, with this cashback increase, Dongbaekjeon issuance for this year is expected to reach around 2 trillion KRW, the highest since 2022, when it reached 2.4 trillion KRW during the COVID-19 period.

As issuance increases, the city will adjust the monthly cashback limit from the existing 500,000 KRW down to 300,000 KRW.

• ●After the limit adjustment, the refund amount will increase from 35,000 KRW [500,000 KRW spending, 7%] to 39,000 KRW [300,000 KRW spending, 13%].

• ●For monthly spending of 300,000 KRW, the refund will increase from 21,000 KRW [7%] to 39,000 KRW [13%].

• ●This cashback adjustment is expected to allow more citizens to benefit.

Mayor Park Heong-joon said, “I expect that this expansion of the Dongbaekjeon cashback policy, which eases the financial burden on households and helps revitalize neighborhood commercial districts, will lead to increased local consumption and small business owners’ sales, ultimately contributing to the recovery of livelihoods. Going forward, our city will continue to support Dongbaekjeon so that it can become more than a simple payment method and serve as a catalyst to revive the local economy.”