Deep Syrup
SK Planet, a subsidiary of SK Telecom, is going to use next-gen artificial intelligence technology called Deep Learning in its simple payment service Syrup Pay so that users can take a picture of their credit cards with a camera on their smartphone and enter related information into Syrup Pay at the same time. The company is also planning to further strengthen security by applying an advanced biometric authentication method to Syrup Pay.
“Several kinds of new technologies are necessary to collect users’ offline data and understand the context exactly in order to make online services more convenient to use and provide services more safely,” said Jeon Yun-ho, CTO of SK Planet. He was a keynote speaker at Tech Planet 2015, which was held at the Lotte Hotel Jamsil, Seoul on Oct. 7. The topic of the event was the convergence of Online to Offline (O2O) commerce with technology.
Jeon noted, “The function of smartphones is improving, and technologies like Bluetooth and Beacon are becoming more standardized. So, the boundary of the online and offline commerce is disappearing.”
Related to this field, SK Planet launched O2O services such as Syrup Wallet, a mobile wallet solution; Syrup Table, a restaurant recommendation service; and Syrup Order, a mobile pre-order service. This year, it has showcased Syrup Store, an O2O marketing solution that enables the owners of small stores to provide information about their places to consumers in the immediate vicinity in real time, in addition to Syrup Pay.
The CTO explained, “OK Cashbag, which was mainly used offline, has been used and accumulated more frequently due to strengthened mobile services. Syrup Order, which allows people to preorder coffee or takeout food offline, is also rapidly expanding.” He went on to say, “The number of users for Syrup Pay also continues to grow, as shown by the fact that the accumulated number of payments that were made on our service has exceeded 2 million cases.”
He stressed, “The number of people that use Syrup Pay is 1.6 times as high as total Syrup users,” adding, “We came to realize that it is very important to provide benefits and convenience to users, based on user context.”
SK Planet is also planning to release an all-in-one card that can accommodate several credit cards in one.