The new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are equipped with more than great apps and sleek tech, they also come with a formidable mobile wallet. Samsung Pay is the dedicated mobile payment processor that utilizes LoopPay technology to allow users to pay with their smartphones. Based on magnetic stripe and radio field tech, Samsung is poised to rival Apple Pay at the POS system this summer.
LoopPay works like this. The user presses on the LoopPay fob on the smartphone. The user then finds the card they want to pay with, selects it, and chooses the “Tap to Pay” button. The data is then transferred to the POS reader using a magnetic field. Any POS terminal can recognize the signal as it mimics the same magnetic field change as a regular mag-stripe card.
Critics wonder if Samsung will truly be able to compete with the high power ecosystems of Apple Pay and others. Samsung reps don’t believe that Apple Pay and other NFC based technologies are really a threat to their systems, as Samsung Pay will be able to be utilized at any POS terminal that takes magnetic striped cards (8,000,000 terminals). Systems like Apple Pay are limited to only interacting with terminals that recognize NFC technology (220,000 terminals).
Samsung representatives believe Samsung Pay is a significant step for the mobile payment industry and Samsung in general. Since it is one of the world’s largest smart-phone manufacturers in the world, Samsung must offer its customers more competitive features like mobile payments. The integration of LoopPay will create new revenue streams for the company. Samsung is currently working with MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. to enable certain tokenization protocols that will use a unique code instead of sensitive customer payment information when using the app to complete transactions.
Although there is a lot of collaboration between mobile payment operators and major credit card companies, not all merchants are on board with the changes. When Apple Pay was introduced, Rite-Aid and CVS deliberately disabled their NFC component in their POS terminals so that the app could not be used in its stores. Representatives of the company state that they are developing their own mobile wallet, CurrentC, in the coming months.
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