Apple and Samsung have a lot in common. Apart from being the poster boys of Android and iOS, they are also arch-rivals. They share a lot of other things as well, such as features, design (they are still fighting a court battle over it) and services. They also have similar payment services. In a bid to increase the reach of Samsung Pay, the South Korean company is now expanding it into more countries around the globe.
Samsung has announced that by the end of 2016, the service will be available in Malaysia, Russia and Thailand as well. The company has partnered with Mastercard in the U.S to give its services an extra boost. By early 2017, Samsung Pay will work like a digital wallet that will store payment and shipping information, making online payments that much easier.
Along with Mastercard, Samsung has also partnered up with Capital One and USAA, which will let Samsung Pay support over 500 banks in the U.S. To put things in perspective, this is more than 85 percent of the country’s debit and credit card market.
Samsung and Mastercard have worked before as well. Together, the two were responsible for introducing the Samsung Pay service to Europe as well.
As always, US is also getting the privilege of some brand new Samsung Pay features. By November, Samsung Pay users in U.S. will be able to deploy in-app payments. In other words, they will get the option of using Samsung Pay while making in-app payments.
To start with, this facility will be available for applications like Velocity, Raise, Fancy, Hello Vino, Wish and Touch of Modern, but you can be certain that Samsung is not planning to stop there. We can expect the company to roll in-app payments out to other countries and other applications soon as well.
To make the platform even more viable, Samsung will also introduce a feature called Deals. As the name implies, the feature will automatically locate nearby discounts and coupons in stores and restaurants, letting users redeem these deals instantly.
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