Handsets let users pay for everything from food to gas.

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.

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.

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