Golden Triangle Bank pre-pay cards

Aram Pan visited the new Golden Triangle Bank building (it has recently moved offices) in Rason and took some interesting pictures of the interior.

DPRK-360-golden-triangle-1 DPRK-360-golden-triangle-2

DPRK-360-golden-triangle-3 DPRK-360-golden-triangle-4

However, my favorite is probably the giant pile of new US $100 notes:

GTB-DPRK-360-cash

That looks like $1.8 million to me. When was the last time you saw that much cash sitting on a counter?

Mr. Pan also shows that the Golden Triangle Bank has established a pre-pay card (similar to the Narae Card or the Koryo Bank Card). I say “pre-pay card” (not debit card) because a debit card is linked to a personal account whereas a pre-pay card is drawn from a bank-owned account. I do not suspect that card holders have actually opened personal accounts at these banks but have instead topped off a card that draws from a bank-owned account (In other words, I don’t think it is easy to get your cash back, and the bank earns the float from investing the currency while the card holder carries a positive balance).

GTB-card-DPRK360-2015

Mr. Pan claims to have put RMB25 into his account, which can be spent in the Rason SEZ, but not outside of it.

Here is a closeup of the front and back of the card:

Golden-Triangle-Bank-Debit-card-2015-edited

 

Here is a translation of the card:

GTB-debit-card-translation

“Seon Bong” is how a South Korean translates “Sonbong”.

The card appears to be equipped with an EMV chip. I am not sure how that works.

UPDATE (2015-8-17): The Daily Mail did a follow up piece here.

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