Tech giant Samsung Electronics is putting the last touches on its Samsung Pay mobile payment system as it expands its partnership with local card issuers.
Samsung and card companies including Samsung Card and BC Card are jointly running trial tests for the mobile payment system with users of the tech giant’s Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge.
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| Samsung Pay, mobile payment system of Samsung Electronics. Yonhap |
Samsung Card, which kicked off the first trial run last month, will run another round of beta testing from this Friday, and BC Card will run a beta test with cardholders from Monday to Aug. 20.
They both will receive feedback from the participants of the test runs and share the results with the tech giant to improve the payment system, which supports magnetic secure transmission and near-field communication.
The MST technology, which emulates the process of swiping a traditional debit or credit card on a payment terminal, does not require retailers to replace their existing point-of-sales terminals for the new mobile payment system.
Giving kudos to the mobile payment system, one of the participants of the beta tests said, “Samsung seems to have finally made it. The mobile payment system will bring a whole new experience to users.”
The company has been partnering with global card companies and banks including MasterCard and VISA to incorporate tokenization technology into Samsung Pay.
Currently the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are the only devices equipped with the Samsung Pay technology, but Samsung said it would expand the mobile lineups that support the mobile payment service. Samsung’s upcoming smartphones — the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge Plus — and smartwatch, dubbed Samsung Gear A, will likely feature the mobile payment tech.
“Fitted with layers of security measures such as fingerprint scanning and a passcode, the mobile payment system is expected to become one of the safest payment measures,” an industry official said.
A Samsung Card official also said “the company will try to offer both convenient and secure payment services and lead the mobile payment market.”
By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)
