LG’s very own payment service, the LG Pay, has finally arrived. LG has released LG Pay in South Korea, after a long period of various reports. The service is currently available in South Korea only, and the company had started rolling it out to the LG G6 units via a software update. Now, more LG-branded smartphones will get this functionality before the end of the year, which is something LG mentioned, but the company failed to mention which phones will get it, so we’ll have to wait for more info.
Having said that, it’s worth noting that LG Pay is based on the Wireless Magnetic Communication (WMC) technology, which basically allows you to make payments by touch regular credit card devices with your smartphone. LG Pay is actually quite similar to Samsung Pay in this regard, both services are using the same Magnetic Secure Transmission technology. LG Pay will, at first, become available through four credit card brands, BC, KB, Lotte and Shinhan, though it will expand to other brands by the end of September, according to the provided info. LG Pay is a bit late to the market, especially compared to Samsung Pay, as Samsung Pay is already present in a ton of markets around the world, and we’re actually talking about two Korea-based companies here, they’re direct competitors in more that one way.
Now, Samsung Pay and LG Pay are not the only such payment services, of course, Android Pay and Apple Pay are also competing in that space, and both of those services, in addition to Samsung Pay, have a head start on LG Pay, so LG will have to expand LG Pay really fast in order to catch up. LG Pay will probably roll out to more markets by the end of the year, though LG did not mention anything about global expansion, but time is of the essence for LG in this case, and that will probably happen, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens, of course, so stay tuned, we’ll report back as soon as LG decided to share more info with the public.