A new report coming out of South Korea claims that the country’s second biggest handset manufacturer, LG Electronics, is preparing to launch its own mobile payment service. LG followed quickly by applying for a new trademark at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for “G Pay”.
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At this time, all we know is that G Pay will likely use NFC technology, just as we see from Apple and Google, but it is unclear if LG intends to work in additional technology such as Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST), like we have from Samsung.
According to commentators, while LG could easily take advantage of Android Pay through its smartphones and Android Wear watches, the Korean company appeared to be keen on taking slice of the market for itself. Turns out that there could be, and that it might actually be known as “G Pay”. The company has the habit of filing trademarks that we think it really has no plans of using.
Now it look like LG is readying up a payment platform to compete with mobile rivals.
We contacted LG for comment. “Industries are putting more importance on USIM-based payment systems including NFC technologies rather than Samsung Pay’s [magnetic stripe] method”. It is also rumored that LG’s mobile payment system will have more functions than Samsung or Apple Pay. Google is also in the process of rolling out its own version called Android Pay.
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If GPay is a mobile payment option as the name suggests, LG will be the latest mobile company to bring a payment feature to its devices. Given its competitors’ straightforward names, that certainly makes sense.
