Our wallets get lighter thanks to the mobile payment craze. The strongest strength of simple mobile payment solutions literally lies with their simplicity. Simple mobile payment solutions require you to enter none of the following: your credit card number, expiry date, password, authentication certificate password. As long as you know you password for your mobile payment system of your choice, you enjoy hassle-free shopping. No need to carry a bunch of plastic credit cards with you.
In November 2013, LGU+ launched its simple mobile payment system called Paynow; in September 2014 DaumKakao launched Kakao Pay. Last year, many more joined the fray: KG Inicis came out with K Pay, SK Telecom with Syrup Pay, Naver with Naver Pay and Samsung Electronics with Samsung Pay.
To smartphone “thumbers” who value the virtue of convenience most, simple mobile payment solutions look very attractive, as evidence by a spike in the number of simple mobile payment solution users and the amount of transactions made through them.
Mobile payment platform Kakao Pay, introduced in September 2014, surpassed 10 million users in just 1 year and 9 months. According to KakoDaum, Kakao Pay is the nation’s first genuine fintech service that is different from other mobile payment solutions tapping into the customer bases of existing online shopping malls.
Kakao Pay is expanding its coverage: it now allows its users to pay their utility bills and postage.
In April, the total value of transactions made through Samsung Pay, which debuted in August 2015, topped 1 trillion in just 9 months.
Paynow is also offering a simple real-time money transfer service that requires only the receiver’s phone number. Once the user has entered his or her bank account number after identity verification via a public authentication certificate, he or she can send money without using a password card or a public authentication certificate. Paynow’s money transfer service is currently backed by 16 commercial banks.
An LGU+ official said: “We are planning to further expand our service to cover various financial services including overseas remittance, loan brokering and utility bill payments.”
LG Electronics’ mobile payment system, LG Pay, is scheduled for release in September. LG Pay is expected to come in the form of a physical credit card-style card, called LG Pay White Card. The LG Pay White Card, equipped with an embedded Integrated Circuit (IC) chip, is expected to serve as a universal card which stores all the information from your other cards. Users can load multiple credit cards into the LG Pay app and use the LG Pay White Card, wirelessly connected to the smartphone, when they make in-store payments.
