Samsung Pay launched in South Korea
Samsung has launched its mobile wallet service Samsung Pay in South Korea. It competes with Apple Pay which was launched last year, in trying to entice shoppers to use their smart phone handsets, rather than credit cards, to pay for in-store purchases.
Samsung has one major advantage that their payment system will work with a large of number of existing payment terminals.
At the moment Samsung Pay is only available in South Korea, as they are expanding to the US on 28th September, and UK, Spain and Chine will be next in the near future.
However, Samsung Pay will only work with theirs newest android smart phones like Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+ and Galaxy Note 5. Unlike Google Wallet and several other earlier payment apps you do not need to unlock the phone and launch a special app to get started. Assuming you have already entered your payment card details all you need to do is swipe up from the bottom of the device’s face and Samsung Pay will appear even if the screen was turned off . Next pick a credit card and scan your fingerprint or type in a pin code. Finally bring the phone close to payment terminal and within 15 seconds complete the transaction.
Like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay is also designed to work existing tap and go terminals using the Near field communications (NFC) transmissions. Samsung Pay additionally works with magnetic stripe readers via Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) which is popular in USA and Asia.
Samsung Pay security unique security system transmits a 16-digit token for each payment card stored on each handset without revealing the actual account details. A Cryptogram – a one-use code generated by an encryption key stored on the handset.