South Korea's use of Internet banking services rose last year due to higher demand for banking through smartphones, data from the country's central bank showed on Tuesday.

The number of Internet banking users, including mobile banking users, came in at 207.04 million at the end of 2022, up 8.5 percent from a year earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

The reading includes all registered users at 19 Internet and mobile banking services providers.

The number of mobile banking users gained 10.3 percent to 169.22 million in 2022, after growing 16.5 percent in 2019, 10.7 percent in 2020 and 13.5 percent in 2021.

The daily average number of Internet banking services usage, including mobile banking, stood at 19.71 million last year, up 13.8 percent compared to the previous year.

In terms of value, the daily Internet banking services usage averaged 76.3 trillion won (58.8 billion U.S. dollars) in 2022, up 8.2 percent from a year earlier.

The daily average money transfer through Internet banking grew 7.7 percent to 75.1 trillion won (57.8 billion U.S. dollars), while the figure for loan application surged 54.9 percent to 1.2 trillion won (about 1 billion U.S. dollars).