LG announces mobile payment service to compete with Apple, Google and Samsung

The mobile payments industry is getting more crowded by the month. Early this morning, LG confirmed on its Facebook page that it will be entering the market with LG Pay, and has signed up a couple of Korean partners to do so. The company has joined forces with Shinhan Card and KB Kookmin Card in its home country, but didn’t say when the service is going live, or when it’ll expand to international markets.

The service will work on most LG phones, new or old. Although the company has been light on detail, we’re assuming that means those with built in NFC. Although, conceivably, it could be like Samsung Pay in that it works with both contactless NFC card readers as well as traditional Magstrip ones. Like Samsung and Apple, the service will only work on its own devices and isn’t cross-platform or cross-manufacturer.

Although we’re not surprised that LG has decided to follow in the example of Sammy, it’s still bemusing that any Android OEM should seek to release their own payment system when Android Pay is already here and will eventually work on most devices as long as they have an NFC antenna.

We’re skeptical of LG’s chances of success in a crowded market, but you can be sure that — in the future — LG’s mobile payment app will become yet another piece of bloatware to add to an already bursting collection of unnecessary duplicate apps and services.