Samsung Pay was developed from the intellectual property of LoopPay, a crowdfundedstartup company that Samsung acquired in February 2015 for an estimated $300m, one of the largest acquisitions made by the firm. The service supports both NFC-based mobile payment systems (which are prioritized when support is detected),[4] as well as those that only support magnetic stripes. This is accomplished via a technology known as magnetic secure transmission (MST), which emulates the swipe of a permanent magnet strip past a reader by generating the near-field magnetic waveform directly. LoopPay's developers stated that because of this design, the technology would work with "nearly 90%" of all point-of-sale units in the United States (which excludes terminals that require the card to be physically inserted into a slot in order to function).[2]
On phones, the Samsung Pay menu is launched by swiping from the bottom of the screen. Different credit, debit and loyalty cards can be loaded into the app, and selected by swiping between them on-screen.[4]
In South Korea, Samsung Pay can be used for online payments[5] and to withdraw money on selected banks' ATMs.[6]
In Mainland China, Samsung Pay supports In-app payments, QR code payments (Alipay, and WeChat Pay) and public transportation cards of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and other cities.
In Hong Kong, Samsung Pay can be linked with Octopus cards, called Smart Octopus, to make electronic payments with stored value service for payments in online or offline systems.[7]
In May 2020, Samsung Pay unveiled Samsung Money by SoFi, a mobile-first money management experience that makes available a cash management account and accompanying Mastercard debit card via the Samsung Pay app, in partnership with fintech company SoFi.[9]
In June 2022, Samsung Pay was renamed to Samsung Wallet in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Along with the renaming came new features such as the ability to store digital assets and digital keys within the Wallet app. These new features also came to the Samsung Pay app in South Korea, despite it not adopting the new "Samsung Wallet" name.[10][11]
Security
Samsung Pay's security measures are based on Samsung Knox and ARM TrustZone technologies; credit card information is stored in a secure token.[4] Payments must be authenticated using a fingerprint scan or passcode.[12][13]
In August 2016, security researcher Salvador Mendoza disclosed a potential flaw with Samsung Pay, arguing that its security tokens were not sufficiently randomized and could become predictable. He also designed a handheld device that could be used to skim magnetic secure transmission tokens, and another which could spoof magnetic stripes on actual card readers using the token. Samsung responded to the report, stating that "If at any time there is a potential vulnerability, we will act promptly to investigate and resolve the issue".[14]
Samsung Pay will not work with devices whose Knox warranty bit is tripped.
Availability
Global availability of Samsung Pay
Supported countries
Samsung Pay in South Korea, for all intents and purposes, is the Samsung Wallet app. It just is not known as the same name that it is known by in other regions.
In May 2016, it was reported that Samsung was developing a spin-off of the service known as Samsung Pay Mini. This service will be used for online payments only, and is also being targeted as a multi-platform service.[54]
In January 2017, Samsung has confirmed that Samsung Pay Mini will not only work on its Galaxy devices but on other Android phones as well, as long as they are running Android Lollipop or above and have a screen resolution of 1280 × 720 pixels or higher.[55][56]
In June 2017, Samsung launched Samsung Pay Mini which is currently available on Galaxy J7 Max/On Max phones (in India).[57]
Availability is limited not just on the basis of where the payment card is issued, but also on the basis of the phone's country-specific code (CSC). Thus, a phone made for an unsupported region can never use Samsung Pay even if it physically resides in a supported region and has a local SIM card. The rather unrelated error message "Connection error. Unable to connect to Samsung Pay temporarily. Try again later." is how Samsung Pay reports this problem.
In June 2020, Samsung announced a partnership between Samsung Pay, Curve and Mastercard for the launch of Samsung Pay Card in the UK and more EE countries where Curve has customers later in 2020.
From September 2021, Samsung Pay Mini was made available for the Galaxy A and Galaxy M series.[58][59]
Unlike other mobile wallet providers such as Google, Samsung did not fully join the sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as Samsung Pay was still partly operating in the country.
Due to the open nature of the Android platform, some transit cards are only available through other Android-based mobile wallets or via their own apps (e.g. SmarTrip for Google Wallet or TAP for Android). In addition, Samsung Pay does not allow for users in one region to purchase cards for another. Galaxy devices must be purchased from the region their desired transit card hails. For public transport systems where transit cards can be used, passengers can ride with Samsung Pay if such transit or payment cards can be added to Samsung Pay. Here are the scenarios where Tap & Pay mode is available.
In addition to the above scenarios, Samsung Pay can still be used with other non-Tap & Pay readers that accept contactless open loop payment cards, but they will have to be verified beforehand.
Compatible devices
Flagship smartphones
Galaxy S
Samsung Galaxy S6 (MST technology limited to some markets, NFC technology available on all models)
