The Change Mariner

Cell Phones Now Debit Cards in S. Korea

AP via Yahoo! News:

Kim Won-jung walked up to a vending machine and bought an orange drink. But rather than insert coins, she paid with the press of a cell phone button.

Kim's Samsung handset has a debit card inside, and pushing its "hot key" beamed the information to complete the transaction.

"My brother really envies me for all the cool things I do with my phone," said Kim, 22, a math major at the Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul.

In one of South Korea's latest efforts to establish itself as a technology trendsetter, the country's three telecom giants, major credit card companies and several banks have been working for a year to enable Koreans to pay for everything from groceries to gasoline by cell phone.