What's the Difference Between Apple Pay and Samsung Pay?

Samsung Pay has just been launched in South Korea – it’s a mobile wallet service.

Samsung joins its competitor Apple, which released its proprietary software last year, in trying to convince people to use their smartphones, rather than the traditional plastic card, when they make in-store purchases.

Samsung believes that it has the upper-hand because their tech works with a larger number of payment terminals already present in stores.

In reality, it’s unknown if this trend will start to gain popularity. It has already garnered a small cult following, but what about other non-geeky members of the public spectrum?

The two tech giants, Apple and Samsung are offering full support so the trend kickstarts itself and relinquishes our bulky wallet, or handbag.

A couple of questions are most certain on everyone’s mind – What is Apple, and Samsung Pay? What’s the difference between them?

Basically, this new form of payment replaces your credit card. The huge difference is that Samsung Pay uses a tokenisation system, and Apple doesn’t.

Samsung Pay is only available in South Korea, for the moment being. The company will expand to the States on the 28th of September. The Seoul-based tech firm has plans to further expand into UK, Spain, and China sometime in the near-future. Rumors have it that by the end of 2016, Samsung Pay will be available in the recently mentioned countries.

This represents a more aggressive rollout strategy on behalf of Samsung. Apple’s Pay service has limited itself to the US and UK, with no future plans of expanding its territory.

Samsung Pay will only work on the company’s latest flag-ship smartphones.

Galaxy Note 5
Galaxy S6 Edge plus
Galaxy S6 Edge
Galaxy S6

Those who provide your credit card will have to get involved in this scheme.

How to Use Samsung Pay

All you need to do to use Samsung Pay is to swipe from up to bottom on your smartphone’s/tablet’s face and the app will appear.

Afterwards, you’ll have to choose your credit card from a list. You can add as many as you like. The device will then scan your fingerprint, and you’ll be required to provide the Pin code.

Within 15 seconds of doing this, provide the device to the payment terminal so the transaction can be completed.

Terminals that use tap-and-go through NFC are compatible with Samsung Pay.

How safe is Samsung Pay

Pretty safe. It doesn’t use a static PAN – primary account number; for transactions. In its stead, it uses a tokenissation system to protect against the threat of hackers copying the coded details on a users magnetic stripe.

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Roxanne Briean

I am a geek, a gamer and a writer. I have always been fascinated with the online community. At the moment I work as a full-time writer and study interior design. When I'm not scouring the net in search of interesting new gadgets and software I spend my time in MOBAs or drawing.