Samsung Pay far more compatible than Apple Pay
As expected following the acquisition of LoopPay several weeks ago, Samsung has announced Samsung Pay will use Magnetic Secure Transmission technology. This is in addition to NFC, to make payments via a mobile.
LoopPay’s Magnetic Secure Transmission technology lets card data securely transmit from the Samsung Galaxy S6 or S6 Note to any swipe card reader. This means shops and restaurants won’t need to update their card readers with expensive new touch and pay variants.
This makes Samsung Pay a much easier sell than Apple Pay, which should make adoption a lot simpler. “Universal adoption is critical,” claims Samsung’s spokesman at Galaxy Unpacked. “It will cover 90% of US retailers,” compared to 10% coverage for NFC only.
Access to the app is simple too. It requires you to swipe up from the bezel, use the fingerprint scanner and just tap the phone to the card reader. To make sure it’s secure, none of the sensitive information will be stored. Instead the information will be tokenized.
Samsung Pay will arrive in the US and Samsung’s homeland, Korea, in the summer and will be launched in Europe later.