LG Pay launch date revealed: New mobile payment service for G6 smartphone

LG on Wednesday (22 March) said it is launching a new mobile payment service in South Korea in June.

The company said it will start offering the payment service dubbed LG Pay through its 2017 flagship smartphone, the G6, which was unveiled at a media event on 26 February at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The service would allow G6 users to make payments using credit card readers via magnetic signal from the phone. Samsung Electronics had launched a similar payment system, Samsung Pay, in August 2015.

The launch is expected to put LG in direct competition with rivals Samsung and Apple, which already have a strong foothold in the market with their services available in more than 10 countries, reports Financial Times.

LG Pay will not be supported by other LG devices. The company said that it has no plans of expanding the services to other countries as it requires consultation with credit card service providers.

In November 2015, the company registered a trademark for LG Pay in South Korea and the US. A company official told the Korean Times, "We will sign a deal with some of the country's major card companies before officially launching our mobile payment platform." Shinhan and KB Kookmin Card were the two biggest credit card companies that were supposed to sign a deal with LG.