Start date for pilot project of Zero Pay is set for the 17th of December, which is going to be earlier than the initial expected date. When there were negative sentiments among The National Assembly and people that it would be impossible to implement Zero Pay project by end of this year, Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) and Seoul-si pushed forward the start date of Zero Pay service. MSS and Seoul-si are going to start recruiting businesses that desire to participate in this project.
South Korean Government and Seoul-si set the start date of ‘Zero Pay’ pilot project to be the 17th of December. Prior to this, MSS established ways to establish and operate Zero Pay platform and discussed them with commercial banks.
MSS is going to start recruiting businesses for this pilot project and it is going to start asking regular payment businesses and financial companies this week on whether they intent to participate in this project. Although it was going to start recruiting on the 15th, it has been postponed a bit as discussions between departments took some time.
A private preparation committee that will push for Zero Pay project will also be established. It is heard that MSS is going to establish Small Business Simple Payment Promotion Business Group (tentative name) shortly and appoint Director Lee Geun-joo of Korea Fintech Industry Association to be the chairman of this committee. Director Lee used to work as the department head of IBK’s Smart Finance Department and he has network that can mediate oppositions surrounding Zero Pay.
This business group is going to start recruiting members and carry out tasks to implement Zero Pay project starting from next week.
When this business group is established, MSS is going to establish a SPC (Special Purpose Company) that will be responsible for calculation and operation of Zero Pay. It is heard that the preparation committee will be responsible for establishing this SPC.

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<Ministry of SMEs and Startups and Seoul-si decided to implement Zero Pay (simple payment system for small businesses) on the 17th of December. Employees from BC Card Headquarters in Seocho-dong are paying for lunch using QR codes. Staff Reporter Kim, Dongwook | gphoto@etnews.com>

“Operation and detailed plans of Zero Pay will be decided freely by people.” said a representative for MSS. “Preparation committee will establish a foundation and a SPC to gather individual business that will participate in this project and lead management.”
“Starting date for Zero Pay project is set for the 17th of December.” said a representative for Seoul-si. “In-depth discussions between departments are taking place so that Zero Pay project is implemented by end of this year.”
On the other hand, many people are wondering if it will be possible to start Zero Pay system on the 17th when participating businesses are not even selected yet. Disagreements with a huge IT company that already decided to participate in Zero Pay project are being brought up continuously. There are also many tasks to resolve since there is no agreement between South Korean Government and commercial banks regarding a problem involving charging fee of Zero Pay.
“A huge IT company is rethinking about participating in this project when it was told that it could not use its own QR codes that it had installed offline prior to participating in Zero Pay project since Zero Pay requires universal QR codes.” said a representative for a participating company.
“It is early to discuss about whether a particular business will participate in Zero Pay project when standards regarding Zero Pay are not announced yet.” said a representative for MSS.
Staff Reporter Gil, Jaeshik | osolgil@etnews.com & Staff Reporter Park, Jungeun | jepark@etnews.com