KT Corp. and SK Telecom, South Korea’s top two mobile carriers, said Wednesday they will work with a local credit card firm on a new service that provides information on subscribers’ whereabouts to prevent the use of stolen credit cards overseas.

The memorandum of understanding signed by the carriers and NH NongHyup Card Co. aims to better handle cases of stolen cards abroad by exchanging data on subscribers’ locations so that the card firm can automatically detect any misuses not approved by the cardholder.

“The service is provided based on carriers’ roaming system,” said Kim Kawn-sung, a communications official from KT. “When cardholders travel abroad, we inform the financial firm of their location. This way, we can sort out a card transaction that happens in other places. (Yonhap)