Viva Republica, operator of mobile fintech platform Toss, said Monday that it has launched a payment gateway subsidiary called Toss Payments.

The establishment of the new subsidiary comes after the fintech company reached an agreement with mobile network giant LG Uplus in December, taking over full ownership of the latter’s payment gateway unit. A payment gateway is a service that authorizes credit card payments.

With the new subsidiary, Viva Republica aims to take e-commerce payment services up a notch.

“In global markets, tech-savvy payment gateway firms are driving change in the payment and e-commerce markets,” said Kim Min-pyo, chief of Toss Payments, adding, “The newly launched firm will try to become a true business partner for its customers and bring change to the local payment market.”

The company forecast that the domestic payment gateway segment will likely grow from its 2019 value of 317 trillion won ($265.6 billion), based on the volume of credit card transactions, to 525 trillion won in 2022.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)