Samsung wants to expand Samsung Pay to other smartphones
Samsung has been working hard to roll out Samsung Pay to all of its phone offerings, not just the flagships like the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy Note 8. Now that most mid-range Samsung devices support the service, it sounds like the South Korean giant is turning its eye to other manufacturer’s smartphones as a source of revenue. However, there are some hurdles that Samsung has yet to overcome.
Samsung acquired LoopPay back in 2015 before the roll out of Samsung Pay, which offers proprietary Magnetic Secure Transmission that allows you to do things like the offline tap and pay feature. Services like Android Pay and Apple Pay don’t have this technology and only work with terminals that are NFC-enabled.
That’s one of the challenges of getting Samsung Pay to work on other smartphones, since a specialized chip that enables MST needs to be included on these devices. According to one report, Samsung has held talks with other smartphone manufacturers in various markets to see about including this technology.
Right now, it appears Samsung is currently exploring selling an accessory that can bridge the gap between Samsung Pay and other smartphones. The source for the info said the accessory could be similar to the LoopPay Card, which is a battery-powered plastic puck that allows for MST technology to be used in conjunction with other devices.
The timeline for this roll out seems to be pretty far in the future, as both strategies have yet to be finalized as Samsung prepares to move forward. Samsung is expected to make a decision and bring these features to market in mid-2018 or so.