Lg Scraps Plan to Unveil 'lg Pay' At Mwc

LG Electronics has scrapped a plan to unveil the company's new mobile payments system LG Pay at this year's Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona.

"LG Electronics has delayed the official launch of LG Pay to the second quarter of this year to help the new LG flagship smartphone G5 receive more media attention," an LG official said Friday.

The official denied that the decision was made because of poor support from major credit card issuers in the company's target markets such as the United States.

The LG Group's consumer electronics affiliate will hold its unpacked event to launch the G5 on February 21 at the Sant Jordi Club in Barcelona.

The G5, which will have a 5.3-inch LCD display supplied by LG Display, is the first under the leadership of LG's mobile chief, Cho Juno, who is also a de facto CEO of LG Electronics.

"LG can't afford to see another failure of the G5 amid challenging market situations after its earlier V10 smartphone apparently failed to get much traction," said another official at one of LG's technology affiliates.

Since late last year, LG Electronics has been preparing to add the mobile payment function to its smartphone lineup. In November, LG signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Shinhan Card and KB-Kookmin Card to promote LG Pay.

It has been said that LG could have the resources to do a universal card for mass markets. The firm's iteration appears to have the standard features better display to let users see which card is active, buttons to select them and contracts to keep it charged up, LG officials said.

LG is the latecomer to the mobile payments market, which Google, Apple...