Mobile Credit Cards
Four leading credit card companies in Korea developed a common standard for the popularization of mobile credit cards.
Shinhan Card, KB Kookmin Card, Hyundai Card and Samsung Card announced on February 21 that they finished the development of the new mobile payment platform. It is going to be put to commercial use starting from next month, from those companies completing the preparations first.
The core of the new standard lies in an application-type mobile credit card. It means that any smart phone user can use his or her credit card on a mobile basis by just downloading the application, unlike the existing mobile credit cards that have to be downloaded onto the USIM chip. Also, the credit card number is not saved but a one-time card number is generated every time a payment is made to forestall any personal information leakage.
The new development adds to the convenience of affiliate stores, too. The application-type mobile card is available in four forms, that is, bar code, QR code, NFC and direct input, and the stores do not have to purchase a payment terminal.
In the meantime, NH Nonghyup Card and Lotte Card are also planning to join the project down the road. The six companies’ goal is to work together to increase the number of the affiliate stores through service upgrade and popularize the new technology nationwide.
“It’s quite unprecedented in the credit card industry, where competition is very fierce, that multiple companies are engaged in a joint project and all of the participants have exerted great efforts to come up with a satisfactory result,” said an industry executive who took part in the project, adding, “We’re expecting that the application-type mobile credit card will lead to the revitalization of the market, overcoming the existing mobile cards’ limitations associated with high infrastructure establishment costs.”