SKT, LGT Join Up in Mobile Payment Service
etienglish.com
By Shin Hwa-soo
Thursday, September 12, 2002
The nation's two leading telecoms operators SK Telecom and LG Telecom have joined hands in mobile payment and settlement services to facilitate financial transactions over mobile handsets. In league with LG Telecom, SK Telecom is now expected to gain upper ground in the competition for mobile payment services against its rival KTF, bringing a sweeping change in the market structure, relations with partner firms such as credit card, electronic currency and solution providers in particular.
The two industry giants agreed on September 11 to jointly develop an open standard based on infrared financial messaging (IrFM) technology, secure member stores and push for marketing aggressively to sharpen their competitive edge in the competition.
"SK Telecom will commit 12 billion won this year to secure some 30,000 stores for mobile payment services, and further discuss with LG Telecom on joint investments," said Cha Jin-suk, senior manager at SK Telecom.
"We expect this partnership to help the two companies not only better cope with the government standardization policy but also boost investment efficiency in service infrastructure and ease the development burden for mobile handset manufacturers," the two sides said in a statement.
KTF, which launched the nation's first mobile payment service in May and is set to unveil an IrFM payment service-enabled handset later this month, was quick to craft countermeasures to maintain its upper hand against the alliance.
"Payment infrastructure standardization between two operators is a very touchy issue the government needs to look into," said a KTF official. "Even if the two mobile operators have adopted a single standard, they are still obliged to comply with the government standardization initiative."
"We plan to secure some 20,000 stores for our payment service this year, which can be adjusted upward depending on the joint investment by SK Telecom and LG Telecom," he added.
Meanwhile, credit card, e-currency and solution firms, expecting the intense competition among mobile operators to buoy up the service market, still raise the concern that the influence-wielding power could be lopsided toward SK Telecom. In particular, those firms aligned with KTF are watching the developments anxiously. |
