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Mirae Asset, Shinhan clash over alternatives to Apple Pay
A customer makes payment using Mirae Asset Pay. Courtesy of Mirae Asset Securities
By Park Jae-hyuk
By Park Jae-hyuk
Mirae Asset Securities' plan to launch its own mobile payment service for iPhone users in July appears to be causing discomfort to Shinhan Card, which has already offered its own alternative to Apple Pay, the U.S. tech giant's digital wallet service that has been unavailable here.
Among the nation's eight credit card issuers, Shinhan was the only company that did not participate in beta tests of Mirae Asset Pay in November last year and June this year.
Although Mirae Asset said it is trying to make all companies' credit cards useable on its mobile payment system, Shinhan said it currently has no plan to participate in the securities firm's new service.
“We will make a decision, after watching the use of Mirae Asset Pay for a while,” a Shinhan Card spokesman said.
Mirae Asset is seeking to start offering its mobile payment service officially from next month, after going through a review of the new business by the financial authorities.
Its payment service is based on the near-field communication (NFC) technology that Apple Pay uses.
Apple has not launched Apple Pay in Korea, because it reportedly wants domestic card firms to provide their affiliated merchants with NFC devices. In contrast, Samsung Pay has been accepted widely in Korea, because it uses both NFC and magnetic secure transmission (MST), allowing the payment service to work with older terminals.
Mirae Asset Pay, however, does not need separate NFC devices, because Alink, a local fintech firm that jointly developed Mirae Asset Pay, enabled payments using NFC tag stickers.
But still, Mirae Asset needs to ask merchants nationwide to put the stickers inside their stores.
Shinhan's mobile payment service for iPhone users uses a special smartphone case that enables contactless payments based on soundwave technology. It can be used at any store that allows payments with physical credit cards.
If Mirae Asset fails to get Shinhan on board, it will face difficulties in attracting a large proportion of iPhone users, given that Shinhan holds the largest share in the domestic credit card market. According to the Financial Supervisory Service, the card firm accounted for 21.31 percent of the market during the first quarter of 2021.