Mobile payments is the new Android — everyone wants a piece of it. Samsung, Google and Apple have gotten the trail hot in the early going, and now LG is looking to do much of the same. The company confirmed to Korean press that they’re looking to launch their mobile payments platform next month.
The details are scarce right now, but it sounds like LG will start with their home country of South Korea and work with the top card companies there in order to get this thing going.Deals with Shinhan Card and KB Kookmin Card should be inked by Thursday, which would spell one of the first major steps in getting this thing off the ground.
It’ll be interesting to see how LG plans to steal business away from Samsung with this move. Samsung Pay’s advantage comes from a technological standpoint — the usage of both NFC and MST technologies means Samsung Pay is accepted virtually anywhere you can use a card swipe. They were also first to market, and with a strong lead in smartphone sales Samsung is likely to make it hard for anyone to one-up them through conventional methods.
Regardless, LG doesn’t want to let the company steal all of the mobile payments thunder, and they’ll make a valiant effort to challenge the throne. LG will apparently look to push the service on the LG V10, which is one of the only handsets in their repertoire which makes use of a fingerprint scanner.