LG is releasing a mobile payment app, and you'll never guess the name

By Russell Holly
last updated

The mobile payment world just got a little more crowded, according to the Korea Herald. LG is deploying the entirely obviously named LG Pay in South Korea with the help of four credit card companies and big plans for expansion. LG Pay is expected to compete directly with the more well known Samsung Pay by offering a different approach to emulating regular cards in magnetic stripe terminals.

Instead of using the Samsung-owned Magnetic Secure Transmission tech, LG will be using Wireless Magnetic Communication for its feature. Users likely won't notice a significant difference in how these two magnetic communication methods work, as both invite you to tap the back of your phone to the magnetic stripe reader on the terminal to wirelessly transmit credit card data. As we know, this has significant advantages for adoption beyond what NFC can offer because it works with "old" payment terminals.

LG isn't currently talking about plans for expansion, but assuming this South Korean rollout goes as planned you can likely expect to see this feature offered later this year.

Russell Holly
Russell Holly

Russell is a Contributing Editor at Android Central. He's a former server admin who has been using Android since the HTC G1, and quite literally wrote the book on Android tablets. You can usually find him chasing the next tech trend, much to the pain of his wallet. Find him on Facebook and Twitter

20 Comments
  • LG pay had me at magentic....
  • Don't know how different the magnetic techs can really be. It's a brilliant idea that Samsung seemed to have used first at least in phone tech.
  • *that they purchased before anyone else.
  • Nice use of the atricles title made me chuckle...ty
  • I was going to guess Super Hyper Give Your Money and Take Stuff Home Pay.
    I was close
  • Lol!
  • Are magnetic stripe readers commonplace in south Korea? I'd have thought they would be a bit more... Advanced. I actually thought it was just the states that were clinging to it. And maybe Canada
  • Canada has been using chip and NFC for years, noone uses magnetic here...
  • Maybe Walmart.
  • Everybody coming up with their own mobile pay system is the best way to turn people off. If this strategy continues mobile pay will never become "mainstream". I understand that every company thinks they have the best system but people will find this confusing and stay away. Companies should work together and produce one safe, reliable, secure and easy to use system. Or at least one for Android and one for icrap.
  • Agreed! It's getting so annoying seeing all these stupid digital wallet systems. I mean some big box stores still refuse to enable NFC even though they have the terminals that use it, looking at you Costco, Target and Walmart!!!
  • That in itself is one of the main reasons that adoption of NFC hasn't really taken off. Where the hell can I use it. Samsung rectified that by using MST. I am able to use it at all the stores you mentioned. Still confusing to someone that doesn't understand technology all that much.
  • While I agree with you, in my opinion, these are good for innovation. Time will tell which one is more user friendly and works as expected and that one will win customer loyalty and can (hopefully) become standard.
  • I would say in general, I may agree with you. However, I feel like this is an actual good idea. If I have an LG phone and I want to be able to make payments without a card on a terminal that doesn't have NFC, I didn't have options before, but now I do. I feel like this is fine, so long as LG can actually get the support from banks and card carriers that it needs.
  • I agree that different companies systems only lead to confusion. The only system that works across most Android Devices is Google pay. The problem is that Samsung is using the pay system to drive sales to their hardware. Samsung would gain nothing by letting every device use it. I see Google as the failure to not really promote it very hard. I got an email from my bank this week saying that if i use Android pay 5 times at a grocery store i will get a $15 credit. I just cant find a grocery store that takes Android pay. Fractured markets lead to fractured results
  • Welcome to the party LG
  • Just another bandage to slow down adoption of true contactless payments.
  • We....ll....
  • Samsung Pay MST is the best way to confuse a store manager that says no NFC? Let them finish ringing you up, then wait for them to says debit or credit. Say debit and they press there button on their terminal then pull out your phone and open Samsung Pay.
    It works and they look stupid.
    Then a couple of weeks later the store accepts mobile payments.
  • Lol