The competition among mobile payment gateways has become more interesting as all players are now continually expanding their markets. Samsung Pay is now adding one more country to its arsenal as it has launched in Australia and with partnerships with two of the largest financial institutions, American Express and Citibank. Those who have compatible Samsung devices and are customers of these two banks will now be able to use their smartphones to make payments offline and online.
Samsung Pay has a distinct advantage over competitors like Apple Pay and Android Pay since it can function with both the regular POS terminals that accepts credit and debit cards and those that have near-field communication. So if you have the compatible Samsung smartphones (Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+, Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge), you will now use them to make payments in establishments, as long as your local operator allows it and if you use American Express and Citibank for your banking needs.
Australia is only the fifth market where Samsung Pay is available, which includes South Korea, the US, China, and Spain. They are also looking at expanding the app’s function to beyond just making payment as they partner not just with retailers but with government departments and ticketing companies as well. It uses three levels of security, that is why it has met the standards of some partners that involve sensitive kinds of interaction: fingerprint authentication, tokenization, and Samsung KNOX’s high level security.
While of course Samsung is a bit limited since you can only use it on Samsung devices of course (as compared to an Android Pay that has a wider market). But hopefully, as it expands to more countries and takes on more partners, some users will choose to get a compatible Samsung device just to be able to use Samsung Pay.
SOURCE: Samsung
