Could LG be poised to take on the likes of Apple Pay? New trademark filings by the South Korean firm point towards an interest in mobile payments.
According to VentureBeat, the trademark is for a product or brand known as "GPay", which the filing says could be used on smartphones, computers and wearables.
While there are no exact details on what any new product or service will entail, it is probably reasonable to speculate that the company is attempting to play catch-up with its rivals that have put the ability to make payments on devices.
Playing catch up
For example, Apple launched its Apple Pay in the US last year which uses NFC to communicate wirelessly with card readers. Google is also in the process of rolling out its own version called Android Pay.
Meanwhile, the imaginatively named Samsung Pay system uses clever technology inside of the phone to simulate the swiping of a magnetic stripe card. It means the technology can be used on a much wider array of existing payment terminals.
Like Samsung, LG's devices all tend to run Android so presumably if it is launching its own separate payment system it is doing so because it thinks that it can gain a larger slice of the pie: With any commission on payments heading into LG's coffers rather than Google's.
