Report: LG G6 mobile payment tech to use MST, like Samsung Pay

Rumors suggest that LG Electronics has long been looking for a way to enter the mobile payments market and it now seems that the company has settled on a method that uses Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) technology. According to industry sources, LG has refocused its efforts into an MST solution in order to match the convenience of Samsung Pay’s solution.

According to these same sources, this MST technology is to be incorporated into LG’s next flagship smartphone, tentatively known as the LG G6. Unlike NFC technology used exclusively by Android Pay and Apple Pay, MST works with older magnetic credit card machines too, simply by placing the phone near the card reader. This means that LG’s new mobile payment system could be used at all retail stores, an important note when more than 90 percent of card readers used in stores are based on MST.

However, given that Samsung has already done extensive work on its own MST payment system, LG is having to invent its own technology entirely from scratch to avoid patent disputes. Apparently LG is developing its mobile payment system entirely in house in such a way that avoids patents for Samsung Pay.

This report also means that LG has given up on its White Card approach that we heard about back at the beginning of the year. Although I’d assumed that they’d scrapped that rather poor idea anyway. Prior to that, LG’s mobile payment technology had been known as LG Pay or G Pay, and we may see one of these names reappear next year.

Of course, the other essential part of a mobile payment system is support of national and international banks. LG has long been in talks with major card companies in South Korea, which is likely where G Pay will appear first. However, there will be a lot of work to do before LG’s system has global reach to match its rivals. It’s possible that LG has simply left mobile payments a bit late to have a major impact on the market.

“Discussions about linking LG Electronics’ MST technology with credit card companies are going to take place at the end of this month.” – anonymous representative for a financial industry

Although LG may not be looking to implement a brand new approach to mobile payments, adopting the universally usable MST design could yet give the LG G6 an edge over competing smartphones. Rolling out G Pay to lower end models quickly could also work in the company’s favor.

Would you be interested in using LG Pay with the LG G6, or are you already making purchases with an NFC service just fine?