Tech giant Samsung Electronics plans to offer a mobile payments function in a smartwatch to be launched in the second half of the year, South Korea's Electronic Times newspaper reported on Monday citing unnamed sources.

Samsung would use near-field communication (NFC) technology to support mobile payments on the smartwatch, the report said. This is the same technology Apple Inc uses for the Apple Pay function supported by its smartwatches.

The South Korean firm has said that its Samsung Pay mobile payments service, which supports NFC technology, will be available with "select partners" in July. The company did not immediately comment on the report. – Reuters