One of the major providers of Android based smartphones in the United States may be entering into mobile payments.
According to recent reports and rumors that are becoming increasingly widespread online, LG Electronics is in the midst of an effort to develop and launch its own native mobile wallet app.
These headlines have come into the spotlight after the company made a trademark filing for names suggesting payments.
The names that have caused speculation about a native mobile wallet from the company are “G Pay” and “LG G Pay”. These trademark filings were made both in South Korea and the United States, according to a number of reports including ETNews from South Korea. The trademark claims were apparently for functions that were “related to data transmission” with regards to both smartphones and smartwatches.
There have also been a number of others steps taken by LG that suggest a potential mobile wallet.
Among the moves that LG has taken that indicate that it is interested in stepping into mobile payments include the Watch Urbane LTE smartwatch from the company which includes NFC (near field communication) technology. This is the same tech used by a large number of the mobile payments platforms that are already in existence. This would make it possible for devices to complete transactions at a checkout counter.
Also a component of the speculations was the statement made by Kim Jong Hoon, the director of LG Electronics, when he said that the company had been considering an expansion into smartphone payments at a media conference this month for new hardware from the company.
This would make LG the fourth launch of a mobile wallet in the United States from a major company, since 2014. The primary competition that LG will be facing within this sector is likely from Google and its Android Pay. The reason is that because LG’s devices are Android based, it would give consumers the choice between the two apps. Moreover, it could even be that both of those mobile apps could come pre-installed on the devices. Therefore, consumers would be most likely to choose from between the two applications that are already there, as opposed to downloading an alternative.
The new payments app will be called the SBI Buddy and it is going to be launched by the financial institution.
The State Bank of India (SBI) has now announced that it intends to jump into the rapidly growing mobile wallet category, that already features large players in the country such as Pocket, from ICICI Bank, and PayZapp, from HDFC.
The bank has revealed that it is planning to take part in this market, getting in while it is still very young.
A recent report from UBS and KPMG has shown that the mobile banking using population of India is the youngest in the world. In fact, those using their smartphones for purposes such as checking accounts and for mobile wallet apps are notably younger than the users in Europe and the United States. That report cautioned banks by saying that if they do not establish solid mobile banking strategies, they are at risk of losing their customers, and failing to be able to take advantage of sizeable cross-selling opportunities over the short term, while harming their competitive advantage over the longer term.
The report explained that banks are now taking on strategies that involve mobile wallet and banking apps.
In this way, banks of all sizes are taking on an attitude of “mobile first,” while the larger institutions are working on gathering up technology startups that will give them the ability to keep up with the rapidly changing and evolving industry. The report stated that “Indian customers demonstrate the highest likelihood of changing banks driven by the availability of better mobile banking services.”
It is also important to point out that SBI isn’t the only financial institution that is currently working on developing a mobile banking or payment app to enter into the industry at this point. YES Bank and Axis Bank have also recently revealed that they will be launching their own mobile apps and that these wallets will be available to customers very soon.
The SBI Buddy mobile wallet application will soon become available to current customers of the bank, as well as to certain other subscribers. The bank has already partnered up with a number of merchants, which mean that once an m-banking account has been opened by the consumer through the mobile app, that person will be able to use mobile payments without having to download each merchant’s individual apps.
