Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
Kakao's mobile wallet service in smooth progress
An unnamed Kakao Talk user checks out messages in this file photo, Tuesday. / Korea Times file
By Bahk Eun-ji
By Bahk Eun-ji
Kakao, the nation’s top mobile messenger service provider, said Tuesday that its plan to launch a new payment service in collaboration with nine credit card firms in September is progressing smoothly.
The popular messaging company denied some reports that it may delay the launch of the service due to some credit card companies expressing concerns.
The card firms are reportedly reluctant to cooperate with Kakao due to unaddressed security issues involving the service.
Kakao released a statement clarifying its stance that it has not hit any major problems in launching the service as planned.
“We are in the final stage without any significant problems. As we announced earlier, we will be able to start the service in September,” a Kakao official said.
The official also said the company and credit card companies are making sure that the service will encounter no obstacles related to security.
With the Kakao’s payment service via the messenger app, users will be able to settle payments after registering their credit cards on the service.
Currently, customers need to download a public authentication certificate if they spend more than 300,000 won on the Internet.
Kakao will introduce MPay operated by LG CNS as the authentication method, which is comparatively safer and more secure than other programs.
The new security program was approved as the safest measure by the financial authorities, officials said.
The Kakao official said the new payment service will benefit both customers and card issuers. If the payment option becomes more convenient for users, that will encourage them to spend more.