[Aju News DB]
Google's mobile payment system "Google Pay" will start servicing in South Korea next year, an IT specialist media reported Monday.
ETNEWS quoted insiders from South Korea's IT and finance industry as saying Google Pay's service would begin in South Korea from February next year in a joint operation with VISA.
Google Pay is supported by almost every Android OS smartphone with Near Field Communication (NFC) support. The NFC-based payment system is serviced in the United States and many European countries.
NFC is widely used in simple payment and security systems such as public transport payment cards and key cards. Its South Korean rival Samsung Pay has both NFC and Magnetic Secure Transmission, capable of using the wireless communication and conventional magnet card reading systems. Samsung Pay is only available on Samsung smartphones.
Many experts predict that Google Pay will cause a big change in South Korea's mobile payment market dominated by Samsung Pay, as about 70 percent of smartphone users here own Android OS smartphones with NFC support.
However, many stores are not equipped with NFC readers. Only some like convenient stores have NFC readers equipped to its cash registers.
Aju News Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
