Months after they were beta testing the service with several users in the country, Samsung Pay is now officially available in India. With just one app, card payments, mobile wallets, and the country’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) are integrated in a cardless, mobile system that can be used through compatible Samsung smartphones. This mobile payment gateway is now available in 14 countries and more are expected to be added later this year. However, there is no confirmation yet that they are testing out the system on mid-tier devices for this particular market.
Samsung Pay has been in existence for around two years and slowly but surely has been expanding to other markets. India is a big market for the Korean brand, although their market share probably doesn’t come from the premium handsets, and is more focused on the entry-level and mid-tier ones which cannot carry the mobile payment system just yet. That is why there were rumors flying around that they will soon be trying it out with the Samsung J series in India. But so far, there hasn’t been any confirmation on that news.
So for now, only those who have a Galaxy S7, S7 edge, S6 edge+, Note5, A7 (2016), or A5 (2016) smartphone will be able to use Samsung Pay in India. You would also need to have a Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, SBI Cards and Standard Chartered Bank card to connect to your account. Citibank India customers will also be included soon. You can also integrate your Paytm mobile wallet as well as the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) mobile payment option that was launched by the National Payments Corporation of India
One advantage that Samsung Pay has over its competitors is that it can use both Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) so that any store that has a credit card machine will be able to use it, as well as Near Field Communication (NFC) devices. If you have the device and the connected banks and you live in India, you can already start using Samsung Pay.
SOURCE: Samsung
