After keeping it under a test phase on its home turf Korea and teaming up with Mastercard for a Europe launch, Samsung, at its ‘Next Is Now’ press event today, announced the US availability of the Samsung Pay. And of course, it announced the Note 5 and S6 Edge Plus, which Mir is busy covering for you comprehensively.
Samsung uses NFC, fingerprint verification and digital tokenization so that merchants can’t see your credit card number. And as you must already be aware, Samsung is using LoopPay’s tech, the company it acquired in February, to drive its Samsung Pay.
However, it isn’t exactly a debut day for Samsung pay. The Apple Pay competitor has been under extensive trials in Korea, followed by a Europe launch in collaboration with Mastercard.
Coming to the details, all of Samsung Pay’s services will require biometric authentication, just like Apple Pay. All of the latest Samsung devices — the Note 5, S6 Edge Plus, S6 Edge and the original S6 — are equipped with the sensor. As for other samsung devices, there is nothing you can do write now.
As compared to Apple Pay, Samsung has got both an advantage and a disadvantage. As for the disadvantage first, Samsung is still partnering with banks and merchants for them to allow use of Samsung Pay, while Apple has already garnered a lot of partners for its payment service.
To Samsung’s advantage though, the company is already in the process of launching Samsung Pay in the Europe, a market where Apple is yet to get enough partners for a more larger Apple Pay roll-out. Thus, a Eurozone advantage will make Samsung stay one step ahead of Apple.
Samsung Pay, while obviously is company’s projection that it has and can bring up competitive tech to challenge Apple, will also help the struggling Korean smartphone maker to differentiate itself from other Android device makers, specially the likes of Xiaomi in China and Micromax in India. Both of these brands have eaten up on Samsung’s share, riding on low-budget yet powerful devices.
Samsung Pay will also be in stark contrast with Android Pay, Google’s cashless payment solution API which it will offer to any and every Android maker. But for now, Android Pay is mostly a developer tool made available via API. It’s a great way for app developers to accept payments. Samsung Pay, on the other side, is a more consumer-oriented product.
