The long-awaited Samsung Pay mobile payments service could finally be making its way to the UK.
Samsung has long offered a mobile payments platform – just like Apple Pay or Android Pay – around the world, but the UK is yet to get access to the system. It’s a real shame, as the service first launched in South Korea back on August 20, 2015. And even the USA managed to get support for the service in September last year.
But a new report from Sammobile claims that the Samsung Pay UK launch could be very soon. A reader of the blog sent in a record of his chat with two different Samsung representatives, both of which revealed that the UK launch date would be May 16, 2017. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true, mind, but it’s a solid sign of hope for long-ignored UK customers.
We asked Samsung for comment on the matter, and received the following response: "Samsung does not comment on rumour or speculation."
Samsung’s contactless payments system works much in the same way as Apple Pay or Android Pay, offering transactions through NFC – a common feature of my card terminals in the UK. However, Samsung Pay is unique in that it also offers Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST), which lets transactions work with payment terminals that only support magnetic strip cards.
Samsung Pay's UK launch may have been timed to coincide with the recent launch of the Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone
Samsung Pay was actually developed from the intellectual property of a crowdfunded start-up called LoopPay. Samsung acquired the company back in February 2015, and developed a security system on its own Samsung Knox technology. Payments work by storing credit card information in a secure token, and having the user authenticate transactions using a fingerprint scanner.
Unfortunately, Samsung’s UK customers have been left in the lurch, despite rival offerings being widely available much earlier. For instance, Apple Pay launched in the US on October 20, 2014, and made it to the UK in less than a year. And Android Pay launched in the US on September 11, 2015, and landed in the UK eight months later.
The timing could be perfect for Samsung however, as the company has just released two brand new flagship smartphones – the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. Better still, both phones have received rave reviews, with the former scoring a perfect 5/5 in our own tests.
