By
Mayowa Adebajo
April 10th, 2024
South Korean electronics giant is officially launching its mobile payment platform in India, following a successful trial of the platform last month.
A few days ago, Samsung began accepting registrations for early access to its payment solution in India. Those users who signed up for the program can now start using the service.
With the rollout, Samsung became the first company to launch a mobile payment system in India. Last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook ‘unveiled plans to launch apple Pay in India and even visited the country, but there have been no news on whether they will introduce the service since then.
Samsung Pay is now available with selected banks, including ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, SBI Cards, Standard Chartered and HDFC Bank. The support for Citi Bank and American Express will also be added soon. The app is supported by a limited list of devices, including Galaxy Note5, Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+, Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A7.
Currently, the payment solution is available in 12 countries, including Singapore, Australia, South Korea, China, Spain and the United States. The company is also planning to expand the solution to six more countries in the near future, including the UK and Sweden.
Unlike other mobile payment apps, Samsung Pay uses NFC (near-field communication) and MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission) technology that works on the majority of payment terminals. MST sends a magnetic signal from a smartphone to the terminal’s card reader. As Samsung noted, the app works only for in-store purchases and cannot be used for online purchases.
To make a payment, owners of Galaxy devices will need to launch the app and choose the card they want to use. Users can authenticate the transactions using their Samsung Pay PIN or by verifying a fingerprint, and then place the device near the card reader to complete the purchase.
Samsung has also partnered with Paytm, the largest digital wallet in India, to enable users pay via Paytm wallet. Users can make payments via Paytm on Samsung pay without uploading the app on their smartphone. For using the service, you have to add Paytm via Wallet option in Samsung Pay.
Besides, customers can top up their Paytm wallets via Samsung Pay. To add money, you have to select Wallet on the main screen of Samsung Pay and tap on the Add option.
It looks like the perfect time for Samsung to roll out the service in India. The use of credit and debit cards, as well as mobile payment platforms, has significantly increased in the country after the recent demonetization of INR 500 and INR 1,000 currency denominations.