Samsung Pay Hits the Scene With 4 Megabanks on Board
Samsung didn’t just introduce Samsung Pay yesterday. It introduced it with four megabanks as partners.
JP Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America, Citigroup and US Bancorp all are launch partners of Samsung Pay. The four are among the largest card-issuing banks in the nation. Oh, and all four are Apple Pay partners, too. For those of you playing at home, that’s called hedging your bets.
Whether Samsung Pay will usurp Apple Pay is a whole other matter.
Samsung Pay comes to market with the added magnetic secure transaction (MST) option, culled from LoopPay, not just Apple Pay-like NFC. There is already hot debate as to whether MST offers Samsung Pay a leg up on Apple Pay. On the one hand, MST is said to make Samsung Pay available at far more retail outlets, and still offers secure transactions. On the other side of the coin, there is some doubt as to whether shopkeepers are going to accept payments when consumers simply hold their phone up to old magnetic strip readers.
For now, let’s focus on the facts:
- Samsung Pay is being made available with the launch of the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge;
- MasterCard and Visa are both launch partners of Samsung Pay, as well;
- Samsung Pay is built on LoopPay, which Samsung purchased just last month;
- At the launch of the S6s in Madrid, the demo devices did not have Samsung Pay loaded, presumably because the LoopPay trsansaction didn’t close until just recently;
- At the launch event, Samsung CEO JK Shin said that JPM/Citi/BofA/USB were just a few of the financial deals Samsung had signed (it is notable that Wells Fargo & Co. was not a launch partner);
- MasterCard told Business Insider that its transactions going through Samsung Pay will create unique tokens whether you’re using an NFC terminal or a magnetic card reader; and
- With its Softcard acquisition, it is possible that both Google Wallet and Samsung Pay will end up being preloaded on some Galaxy S6s.
The Samsung Pay launch bodes even more payments developments to come. Just when it started to seem Apple Pay had the game in hand.
