Samsung Pay trials begin in South Korea today
Samsung today announced the beginning of trials for Samsung Pay in South Korea, marking the first time the new wireless payment service is being used by the public. Samsung says select Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge owners in their hometown have gotten going with it, with the serving already being supported in most South Korean stores.
The reason it’s already widely supported is because Samsung is using the first wireless payment solution that supports both NFC (near-field communication) and MST (magnetic secure transmission) technologies in the same package.
Users are greeted to a quick video intro to Samsung Pay showing them what it’s for and how it’s used. Set things up by adding your credit card information, and you’re ready to go within minutes. It’s secure, too, thanks to high-level encryption and the fact that Samsung doesn’t store any card information on your device whatsoever. Instead, your card is linked to an encrypted token which your bank uses to make the connection between your phone and your credit card.
Samsung Pay certainly has the technology to compete with Apple Pay and Android Pay, but it’s going to take a global deployment and some serious marketing muscle if they’re looking to compete with the two biggest mobile OS vendors in the game. They’re on the right track, though, and if things go well we should see this spread to more territories by the end of this year (hopefully in time for the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Note 5).
[via Samsung]