Dive Brief:
- Samsung Pay launched yesterday in the United States for users of its Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, and Edge+ smartphones and Note 5 tablets.
- The payments alternative uses near-field communication (NFC) and magnetic source transmission (MST) technologies to communicate with card terminals.
- At launch, users need to have a major credit or debit card issued by Bank of America, Citi, American Express, or US Bank to use Samsung Pay.
Dive Insight:
After a month in beta, Samsung has launched its new Samsung Pay payments system. A sophisticated alternative, Samsung Pay accepts NFC and MST payments, offering an edge over the Apple and Android systems, which rely solely on NFC technology. Like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay uses tokenization to protect credit card information by issuing a one-time code with every transaction.
Availability is Samsung Pay’s weak point. Users must have one of the manufacturer’s latest mobile devices, as well as a Visa, MasterCard, or American Express credit or debit card issued by one of four banks. And while most major mobile providers support Samsung Pay, the nation’s largest—Verizon—is still evaluating the system.
More than 20% of adults used mobile payments in the U.S. last year, according to a new report from Research and Markets. Projections from BI Intelligence say that transactions conducted via mobile will increase tenfold through 2018 to reach $189 billion.
