By We all love traveling. Those of us who are fortunate to have done know all the pains of travel expenses. Exchanging your currency into the currency of the country you’re visiting can be painful and so can be swiping your credit or debit card.
Enter LG Uplus, a cellular network owned by the South Korean tech giant LG who are currently planning on rolling out a blockchain-based overseas payment service/system.
This trial effort was announced on Sunday and will see LG working closely with partners in the US, Japan, and Taiwan with three mobile carrier options offering faster and cheaper payment systems to consumers traveling abroad.
This project is projected to launch in 2019 and the platform is to be based upon blockchain cross-carrier payment platform to be provided by the US partner, this being one TBCASoft according to a recent report from The Korea Times.
The other two carriers, namely the Taiwanese Far EasTone and the Japanese SoftBank have both signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with LG Uplus in order to begin work together on the trial.
This service once rolled out will enable LG Uplus subscribers to complete purchases at selected retailers using their cellphones when traveling through Japan and Taiwan while users of Far EasTone and SoftBank will be able to go shopping in the same fashion whilst abroad in Korea and Japan.
“Customers will have the benefit of an overseas payment system based on convenient, economical and secure blockchain technology,” Joo Young-Joon, director of the mobile services at LG Uplus said.
This service is aimed at consumers wanting to save on the costly international card carrier’s transactions fees and at the same time speed up the payment processes, avoid the service bills for transactions which carriers have to pay in their home countries as well as in their national fIat currency via mobile bills.
Another notable feature is the fact that this service will reduce the risks associated with fluctuations in foreign exchange rates said TBCASoft.
This news also comes less than a week after SoftBank had announced that it recently completed a blockchain proof-of-concept for peer-to-peer mobile payments across different carriers.
SoftBank went on to say that the technology was also developed in partnership with TBCASoft as well as Synchronoss who are a Nasdaq-listed company who previously helped develop an SMS-replacement communications protocol known as RCS (Rich Communication Service) in Japan.
Finally, Far EasTone, SoftBank and TBCASoft are all founding members of a blockchain consortium of mobile service carriers known as the Carrier Blockchain Study Group or CBSG whose aim is to develop an array blockchain services specifically for their industry.
We’ve all been there, abroad having a great time in another country only to sigh once we’ve seen the fees incurred just for making payments.
If this mobile blockchain were to be available in your home country would use it for payments when traveling? Let us know your thoughts.
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