Samsung Pay
Mobile payment and digital wallet service
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Samsung Pay is a mobile payment and digital wallet service, operated by the South Korean company Samsung Electronics. It lets users make payments using compatible smartphones and other Samsung-produced devices, accessed using the Samsung Wallet app.
| Samsung Pay | |
|---|---|
| |
| Developer | Samsung Electronics |
| Release | August 20, 2015 |
| Operating system | |
| Platform | Selected Samsung Galaxy smartphones & Galaxy Watch smartwatches |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | samsung.com/samsung-pay |
First launched in 2015, the service supports contactless payments using near-field communications (NFC), but also supports magnetic strip-only payment terminals by incorporating magnetic secure transmission (MST) in devices released before 2021.[1][2] In India, it also supports bill payments.[3]
Service
Samsung Pay was originally developed by the intellectual property of LoopPay, a crowdfunded startup company that Samsung acquired in February 2015 for an estimated $300m, one of the largest acquisitions made by the firm. The service supports both NFC-based mobile payment systems (which are prioritized when support is detected),[4] as well as those that only support magnetic stripes. This is accomplished via a technology known as magnetic secure transmission (MST), which emulates the swipe of a permanent magnet strip past a reader by generating the near-field magnetic waveform directly. LoopPay's developers stated that because of this design, the technology would work with "nearly 90%" of all point-of-sale units in the United States (which excludes terminals that require the card to be physically inserted into a slot in order to function).[2]
On phones, the Samsung Pay menu is launched by swiping from the bottom of the screen. Different credit, debit and loyalty cards can be loaded into the app, and selected by swiping between them on-screen.[4]
In South Korea, Samsung Pay can be used for online payments[5] and to withdraw money on selected banks' ATMs.[6]
In Mainland China, Samsung Pay supports In-app payments, QR code payments (Alipay, and WeChat Pay) and public transportation cards of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and other cities.
In Hong Kong, Samsung Pay can be linked with Octopus cards, called Smart Octopus, to make electronic payments with stored value service for payments in online or offline systems.[7]
In India, Samsung Pay supports Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and BharatQR, but for bank accounts only, not via credit cards like Google Pay.[8] It also supports bill payments via the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS).[3]
In May 2020, Samsung Pay unveiled Samsung Money by SoFi, a mobile-first money management experience that makes available a cash management account and accompanying Mastercard debit card via the Samsung Pay app, in partnership with fintech company SoFi.[9]
In June 2022, Samsung Pay was renamed to Samsung Wallet in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Along with the renaming came new features such as the ability to store digital assets and digital keys within the Wallet app. These new features also came to the Samsung Pay app in South Korea, despite it not adopting the new "Samsung Wallet" name.[10][11]
In Saudi Arabia, Samsung Wallet also supports adding Mada cards in addition to Visa and Mastercard, Mada which is the Saudi Payments Network is a major payment system in Saudi Arabia [12]
In the United Arab Emirates, Samsung Wallet supports Jaywan cards in addition to Visa and Mastercard.[13]
Security
Samsung Pay's security measures are based on Samsung Knox and ARM TrustZone technologies; credit card information is stored in a secure token.[4] Payments must be authenticated using a fingerprint scan or passcode.[14][15]
In August 2016, security researcher Salvador Mendoza disclosed a potential flaw with Samsung Pay, arguing that its security tokens were not sufficiently randomized and could become predictable. He also designed a handheld device that could be used to skim magnetic secure transmission tokens, and another which could spoof magnetic stripes on actual card readers using the token. Samsung responded to the report, stating that "If at any time there is a potential vulnerability, we will act promptly to investigate and resolve the issue".[16]
Samsung Pay will not work with devices that have compromised Knox security.
Availability
Supported countries
| Date (in chronological order) |
Support for payment cards issued in | Samsung Wallet availability |
|---|---|---|
| August 20, 2015 |  South Korea[17] |
 |
| September 28, 2015 |  United States[17][18] |
|
| March 29, 2016 |  China[19][20] |
|
| June 2, 2016 |  Spain[21] |
|
| June 15, 2016 |  Australia[22] |
|
| June 16, 2016 |  Singapore[23] |
|
| July 13, 2016 |  Puerto Rico[24] |
|
| July 19, 2016 |  Brazil[25] |
|
| September 28, 2016 |  Russia[26][note 1] |
 |
| November 8, 2016 |  Canada[30][31] |
|
| February 24, 2017 |  Malaysia[32] |
|
| March 22, 2017 |  India[33] |
|
| April 27, 2017 |  Sweden[34] |
|
 United Arab Emirates[35] |
| |
| May 16, 2017 |  United Kingdom[36] |
|
| May 23, 2017 |  Liechtenstein |
|
 Switzerland[37] |
| |
 Taiwan[38] |
| |
| May 25, 2017 |  Hong Kong[39] |
|
| September 28, 2017 |  Vietnam[40] |
|
| November 15, 2017 |  Belarus[41] |
|
| March 22, 2018 |  Italy[42][43] |
|
 San Marino |
| |
 Vatican City |
| |
| April 26, 2018 |  France[44] |
|
 Monaco |
| |
| August 21, 2018 |  South Africa[45][46] |
|
| March 23, 2019 |  Indonesia[47] |
|
| January 21, 2020 |  Kazakhstan[48] |
|
| September 20, 2020 |  Kuwait[49] |
|
| October 28, 2020 |  Germany[50] |
|
| August 23, 2022 |  Qatar[51] |
|
| October 31, 2022 |  Denmark[52] |
|
 Faroe Islands |
| |
 Finland[53] |
| |
 Greenland |
| |
 Norway[54] |
| |
| December 11, 2022 |  Bahrain[55] |
|
| April 28, 2024 |  Oman[56] |
|
| December 9, 2024 |  Saudi Arabia[57] |
|
| February 25, 2025 |  Japan[58] |
|
| October 27, 2025 |  Poland[59] |
|
| July 8, 2026 |  Greece[60] |
|
In May 2016, it was reported that Samsung was developing a spin-off of the service known as Samsung Pay Mini. This service will be used for online payments only, and is also being targeted as a multi-platform service.[61] It was also confirmed in January 2017 to work on other non-Samsung Android phones as well.[62][63] It was officially launched on June 2017, first made available on Galaxy J7 Max/On Max phones (in India).[64]
Availability is limited not just on the basis of where the payment card is issued, but also on the basis of the phone's country-specific code (CSC). Thus, a phone made for an unsupported region can never use Samsung Pay even if it physically resides in a supported region and has a local SIM card.[65]
In June 2020, Samsung announced a partnership between Samsung Pay, Curve and Mastercard for the launch of Samsung Pay Card in the UK and more EE countries where Curve has customers, which was later launched on August 18, 2020.[66]
In September 2021, Samsung Pay Mini was made available for the Galaxy A and Galaxy M series.[67][68]
Devices
Current series
| Galaxy S series | Galaxy Z series | Galaxy A series | Galaxy M series | Galaxy Wearables |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|||
| Note: Italicized device names signify support for MST technology on all or select device variants. | ||||
Former series
Galaxy Note
Galaxy J
- Samsung Galaxy J5 & J7 (2016)
- Samsung Galaxy J5 Prime (Mini)
- Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime (Mini)
- Samsung Galaxy J5 (2017)/J5 Pro
- Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017)/J7 Pro
- Samsung Galaxy J7 Max (Mini)
- Samsung Galaxy J7 Duo (Mini)
Galaxy C and others
- Samsung Galaxy C5 and C5 Pro
- Samsung Galaxy C7 and C7 Pro
- Samsung Galaxy C9 and C9 Pro
- Samsung Galaxy On5 (2016)
- Samsung Galaxy On7 (2016) (also known as Galaxy J7 Prime in other countries)
- Samsung Galaxy On Max
- Samsung Galaxy Quantum2 (NFC and MST)
- Samsung W2017] (non-Galaxy smartphone)
- Samsung W2018 (non-Galaxy smartphone)