LG Pay Mobile Payments Is For Real

The mobile payments space is getting crowded. And it’s always crowded with rumors about who is next to join.

Last month, the rumor was that LG was gearing up to roll out GPay as a mobile payments service. Now, however, it appears that rumor is mostly true. New reports indicated that LG is, in fact, rolling out a mobile payments services — in Korea to start — but it’s going to be called LG Pay.

What the latest details show is that LG has gone public via Facebook with the news. Writing in a post: “It’s official! We have partnered with Shinhan Card and KB Kookmin Card to prepare for the launch of LG Pay.”

For now, the service will only roll out in Korea (a date has not yet been announced), and there hasn’t been any word on an international expansion quite yet.

In the October reports, according to a filing with the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office, LG had filed a patent for its mobile payments service, which was named in the application as GPay. That name is specifically listed in categories that relate to smartphones, smartwatches, mobile devices and data transmission. LG is reportedly working with financial services in South Korea to bring this service to market.

GPay had already gained plenty of press, but LG had yet to release a statement on the possible mobile payments service. Until this week. This move from LG comes not long after Google rolled out Android Pay and Samsung rolled out its own flagship mobile payments app, Samsung Pay.

What’s interesting about LG’s potential debut into the mobile “Pay Players” space is the fact that mobile payments haven’t quite taken off yet in terms of consumer adoption — or even widespread merchant acceptance. But that hasn’t stopped startups and larger companies like LG from wanting to join the race, it seems.

But as more players join the mobile payments industry, perhaps that will motivate consumers to think more about ditching their wallets for phones and merchants to accept contactless payments. Only time will tell, particularly as those vying for a piece of the mobile payments pie push out their pitches for mobile payments use cases.