South Korean credit card companies saw their earnings drop 18.6 percent in the first half of the year from a year earlier due mainly to increased costs to cover loan losses, the financial regulator said Sunday. The combined net profit of six credit card companies came to 701.6 billion won (US$647.9 million) in the January-June period, compared with 861.7 billion won a year earlier, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said in a statement.