SEOUL, South Korea—Samsung appears to readying for the launch of Samsung Pay, the company’s digital wallet introduced in response to Apple Pay.
As previously reported in CUToday.info, Samsung announced it was delaying its original June launch of the digital wallet in the U.S. and South Korea until September. A report from The Verge now indicates that Samsung is currently conducting its first public trial of Samsung Pay with selected Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge owners in Korea, a sign that Samsung may try to get to market sooner with its mobile payments solution.
The trial may be a response to Apple Pay gaining more traction and Samsung not wanting to fall further behind Apple Pay, and even Android Pay.
The Galaxy Note 5 is rumored to be headed for launch in August, giving Samsung a good opportunity to introduce Samsung Pay.
Samsung Pay works with traditional magnetic-stripe terminals, and also comes with NFC capability. The company says the system will likely be accepted at over 90% of retail locations, giving it potentially 10 times the reach of Apple Pay.
Earlier this year Samsung purchased LoopPay, the payments tech behind Samsung Pay. LoopPay works differently than Apple Pay, using what it calls "magnetic secure transmission," which "spoofs" a traditional card swipe with magnetic fields when users hold their device near a payment terminal.