Samsung and MasterCard have announced that they will be working together to bring Samsung Pay to Europe.
The tech giant and the financial services company have been working together to supply Samsung Pay to other parts of the world, including the US and South Korea.
While the service was announced alongside the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge back at the beginning of March, Samsung Pay has only just commenced public testing in South Korea in recent weeks. It’s now set to roll out in September.
Now Samsung and MasterCard have confirmed that they are teaming up to bring Samsung Pay to these shores too.
Just like the iPhone 6 and Apple Pay, Samsung Pay will use the MasterCard Digital Enablement Service (MDES) system to make contactless payments from mobile devices.
“European card issuers will be able to connect to the MDES platform and activate the Samsung Pay service upon launch,” promised MasterCard in a recent press release.
Samsung, for its part, said that it was “pleased to join forces with MasterCard to offer a simple and safe mobile payment experience enabled for wider merchant acceptance to MasterCard cardholders and issuers in Europe.”
Read More: Apple Pay vs Samsung Pay
Samsung Pay’s key edge over Apple Pay is that alongside more modern (and far from ubiquitous) NFC payment points, it will also work with old fashioned magnetic secure transmission (MST) card readers. Samsung obtained the technology to implement such ‘backwards compatibility’ when it acquired LoopPay earlier in the year.
On paper, it sounds like a better system than Apple Pay. But until it becomes a live service, such judgements are impossible. Hopefully this news of a European launch means that when Samsung Pay does finally start rolling out in September, it will do so across multiple regions in quick succession.
See how Apple Pay works here in the UK in the video below:
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
