Samsung Pay Archives - Argyll Free Press

Samsung Pay Comes to Australian Users

June 15, 2016 By Michael Turner Leave a Comment

In the not so faraway future, wallets will become useless. In fact, if Samsung’s plan succeeds, you won’t need anything else when you leave the house but its Galaxy smartphone.

The famous Korean company has just launched Samsung Pay in Australia, bringing the contactless mobile payment platform Down Under by partnering with American Express and Citibank.

It means that starting today, Australians who own an Amex- or Citibank-issued card will be able to tap and pay at contactless terminals with their Samsung smartphone. However, the company mentioned the mobile payment method does not apply to Amex/Citibank branded cards from other banks.

After the US, Korea, China, and Spain, Australia has become the fifth major market where Samsung Pay has been launched. Any smartphone running Android 6.0 Marshmallow and above is compatible with the payment technology.

A simple swipe to pay interface makes Samsung Pay as easy as using a card, if not easier. But more than being simple to use, the tech is also very secure.

First, swipe up from the home screen to open payments; choose your card; hold your finger on the home button to verify fingerprint; and tap smartphone to a contactless terminal. The company assured its users that card details aren’t shared with retailers and other merchants.

Samsung is not the first to offer contactless payments in Australia; Apple Pay stole the show by launching alongside American Express in October 2015. By April, ANZ was brought into the fold in April, as well as several Australian banks, such as Commonwealth Bank.

But even though it might be a little late to the game, Samsung is more than eager to offer better deals. For example, it promised merchants and financial institutions that the company won’t take a “clip” of interchange fees (like Apple does).

The long-term goal of bringing Samsung Pay to more countries is that of getting more Samsung devices in the hands of more shoppers and smartphone users. As Elle Kim said, the global Vice President of Samsung Pay, “Everyone is so used to tapping and paying with their cards, we have to do more with their phones.”

Therefore, Samsung wants its payment platform to work anywhere. And while the Korean company is keen to work with banks, there might be some financial partners involved in the future.
Image Source: Let’s Talk Payments

One Day Remaining Until Apple Pay Is Released in China

February 17, 2016 By Kenneth Scott Leave a Comment

The much expected launch of the service is nearly here as there is only one day remaining until Apple Pay is released in China. What that means is that points of sale supported by several banks in China will start working via near field communication contact too, enabling individuals to pay with their iPhones only, after they’ve loaded their cards’ information in their smartphones.

This movement is the mere attempt of Apple to make NFC payments a more popular method than paying with cash or swiping your card. Considering that its release of Apple Pay in the United States nearly a year and a half ago was rewarded with only mild success, but far from the amount of adoption that the company was expecting, it would seem that the tech giant is now preferring to look towards a country such as China.

The reason is the fact that China is officially the second biggest market for Apple and its services were also approved and supported by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. This is the factor that may make the difference when it comes to China – part of the reason Apple Pay was not as successful when it tried expanding its services into United Kingdom and Australia was the major banks’ reticence towards the service. They took a while to start accepting the Apple Pay system and support it in stores, so the service too had a slow evolution.

However, while Apple is receiving a huge amount of support for their payment service in China doesn’t make it easy for the company to breakthrough and establish themselves as a wildly popular alternative. They are currently up against 2 other already very popular payment systems: Tencent’s WeChat Payment and Alipay. It’s not known whether Apple Pay’s ‘attraction points’ have what it takes to steer public away from already well established services to themselves.

There are currently 19 Chinese banks that will support Apple Pay on launch in total, counting ICBC, China Construction Bank and China Guangfa Bank in their midst.

There are currently over 358 million Chinese individuals who make use of online mobile payments in China alone and Apple hopes to gain at least a portion of the market by allowing payment via iPhones, iPads and even Apple Watches. However, the company is not only treading in unknown waters, but also waters that their direct competitors have a lot more knowledge and experience in.

Samsung is planning to brings its own version of the payment service, Samsung Pay, to China later this year as well.

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

August 20, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

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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How to Use Samsung Pay

How safe is Samsung Pay

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