Mobile payments will become more popular as more companies support the format. Currently, there is Apple Pay, supported only by recent products from the company. There is also Android Pay, which is far more compatible, as a wide variety of products which run on the operating system will be able to use it, and then there’s Samsung Pay. This one is only compatible with the four flagship products that the company has released this year, but the company used a technology that makes it compatible with many more credit card terminals. While the first two systems work with newer NFC compatible terminals, Samsung decided to integrate Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) into these phones to send a similar code to those which are sent when using a regular credit card. Thus making it compatible with older terminals used by some smaller retailers.
The mobile payment system has been very successful in Korea, and now that it has launched in the US, the company is promoting Samsung Pay in several ways, their video ads highlight that it is “the most accepted mobile payment” and they started touring some cities in order to show how easy and secure this way of paying actually is, plus users get some extra benefits like discounts or exclusive merchandise when they use it in one of the cities. Of course, carrier support for mobile payment systems is also required, as they have to make sure they work as they are supposed to when they are used with their networks.
Since Samsung Pay arrived in the US, it has been compatible with AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and US Cellular. Verizon was quite ambiguous when asked if their handsets would support it, but then they confirmed that they were testing the service on their locked devices. Now, it has been reported that Verizon will support Samsung Pay on the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy S6 Edge+ and the Galaxy Note 5 and it will come as an update in a near future. These phones will be able to use NFC and MST technologies to make payments, although the exact date when the devices will be updated was not given.