A company official shows GS Retail's new Trip Pass Card at the counter of a GS25 convenience store in Seoul in this handout photo released Wednesday. Courtesy of GS Retail

GS Retail, the operator of Korea's major convenience store chain GS25, will launch a new tourist-friendly card which provides various services such as transportation, payments, tax refunds and identity verification at duty free shops, the company said, Wednesday.

GS Retail said that it will launch the Trip Pass Card next month and will distribute 5,000 cards for free at GS25 stores near Seoul Station and Hongik University in the capital, Aug. 19, before its official launch.

Along with its conventional functions of making payments or paying fares for public transportation, the card will enable users to get tax refunds and show their mobile passports at duty free stores by registering it on their mobile phones.

Based on information collected from mobile passports, the card automatically applies age-specific transportation fares for foreign tourists.

GS Retail plans to begin the sales of the card within next month. After its launch, the company plans to introduce a mobile identification service that allows foreign tourists to verify their age through a mobile passport when purchasing alcohol or cigarettes.

GS Retail said the number of foreign customers is rising at GS25 stores upon the general increase in the number of overseas tourists coming to Korea. It said that payments made at GS25 stores via WeChat and Alipay increased during the first half of this year by 249.9 percent from the previous year.

“We're seeing a rising number of visitors from countries in Southeast Asia, Europe and North America due to the smoking popularity of K-dramas and K-pop,” said Lee Tae-young, merchandiser at GS Retail's service product team. “So we've begun introducing a diverse range of services that we consider as key functions for tourists.”