They may be useful, but payment services from mobile device makers aren’t all that creative in their nomenclature. Take, for example, the latest tool to enter the increasingly crowded payments space. It’s from LG Electronics, and it’s called — you guessed it — LG Pay. Announced on Friday, LG Pay will depend on Wireless Magnetic Communication technology, and allows customers to make payments by tapping their LG devices to NFC-enabled payment ports.
LG’s biggest domestic rival, Samsung, debuted its own payment tool in the summer of 2015, and has been making its way around the world ever since (here’s everything you need to know about Samsung Pay). LG, however, is still in its more nascent development stages. At launch, LG Pay will be available by way of four credit cards — Shinhan, KB, BC, and Lotte. But the company notes that by the end of September, all major credit cards (in Korea, that is) ought to be supported.
The rollout is also being limited to just one phone, for the time being. If you’re an owner of the LG G6, you can access LG Pay once you update your software to the latest version. Again, moving forward, LG plans to make the feature more widely available.
To ensure users’ security, LG will require smartphone owners to scan their fingerprints each and every time they want to make a payment, which the company hopes will establish a new standard for mobile payments.
According to a Korean press release, Kim Hong-joo, executive director of the MC Product Planning Group at LG Electronics, said “We will provide customers with safe and convenient next-generation mobile payment standards with LG Pay, which enables customers to easily and quickly settle their smartphones anywhere.”
