Samsung’s answer to Apple Pay is here, and rumor has it, it’s much better.
There is new virtual wallet in town, and this is one you can’t lose.
Samsung Pay officially launched in the United States this week and some say that it already earns the title of the most capable and accessible mobile payment service. This high-demand industry has been in need of a service that is not only secure, but one you can use almost everywhere. In fact, Samsung promises that its system already works at more than 85 percent of American cash registers.
Samsung Pay has taken mobile payment services to a larger market than its competitors, Apple Pay and Android Pay—both of which use a tool that requires merchants to install next-generation registers that includes a special technology called near-field communication (NFC). Samsung Pay can be more universally adopted by storefronts and consumers because it uses technology that allows you to conduct a wireless payment between your phone and any register that has a magnetic stripe reader—something that most registers already have in place.
What you need to know about Samsung Pay:
- It uses “Magnetic Secure Transmission” technology, or MST. Because of this, Samsung Pay is expected to be an extremely handy mobile device. MST technology emits the same kind of magnetic code that make credit card readers work, giving it an advantage over both Apple Pay and Android Pay in the United States.
- Tokenization. Every time you make a payment, your actual credit card information isn’t sent to the terminal, rather your phone will use a temporary one that the credit card company creates for you.
- Limited availability. Samsung Pay is only built into the company’s newest devices: the Galaxy S6, the S6 Edge and Edge+ and the Note 5. You also need a credit or debit card from Visa, MasterCard or American Express card, and it has to be issued by one of the few banks available at launch: Bank of America, Citi, American Express and US Bank. While most major carriers support Samsung Pay, Verizon says it is still “in the process of evaluating” it.
