LG Electronics on Friday announced the official release of LG Pay, its own mobile payment tool in South Korea comparable to Samsung Electronics's Samsung Pay.

LG Pay is based on the Wireless Magnetic Communication technology and allows users to make payments by touching their smartphones to regular credit card devices.

Rival Samsung Pay provides the same feature through the Magnetic Secure Transmission technology.

The payment service will be initially available through four credit card brands -- Shinhan, KB, BC and Lotte -- but will gradually expand to cover all industry players by the end of September. Users of the G6 smartphone will be allowed to use the LG Pay via software updates. LG G6 users can register up to 10 credit or debit cards to access the service.The company said it plans to expand the services to other devices down the road.

One of LG Pay's key selling points is its highest level of security. LG Pay offers dual-locking systems to log in - which includes fingerprint scanning and virtual card numbers.

LG has been working on the mobile payment system since 2015. It was expected to launch last year, possibly in a universal White Card format, but was again delayed.

Samsung also said Friday it started a new mobile financial service operated by its Bixby artificial intelligence (AI) voice assistant. Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus users can make transactions - such as sending and receiving money - by simply talking to Bixby.