An Apple Pay sticker is displayed at the counter of a restaurant in Seoul, March 20, 2023. Yonhap

Card spending in Korea continued to slip in January as households tightened their purse strings amid an economic slowdown, industry data showed Tuesday.

Credit card spending on lodging and restaurants, which was hit hard by impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol's botched martial law bid in December, continued to slide, falling 1.8 percent on-year to 12.27 trillion won ($8.41 billion) in January, according to the data from the Credit Finance Association.

Card spending for transportation services also dipped 7.6 percent on-year to 1.65 trillion won, and that for health care and social welfare services edged down 1.1 percent to 6.01 trillion won.

Cardholders also reduced spending on leisure, sports and the arts by 1.7 percent to 980 billion won from a year earlier, the data showed.

Card spending for educational services dropped 5.5 percent on-year to 1.74 trillion won, marking the first on-year fall since January 2021, when the nation was gripped by the coronavirus.

Korea's economy grew 2 percent last year, accelerating from a 1.4 percent on-year advance in 2023.

But the country is facing multiple headwinds as domestic demand remains in the doldrums and export growth has slowed amid heated global competition and uncertainties stemming from U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff scheme.

The Bank of Korea recently revised down its growth outlook for the year to 1.5 percent from its earlier forecast of 1.9 percent.

The country's potential growth rate is at 2 percent, and this year may mark the first time ever that its yearly growth rate falls below the level. (Yonhap)