Samsung Pay will be launching in the United States next month following trials in South Korea
Samsung has announced that its new mobile payments service, Samsung Pay, will be available in the United States next month. The company has been testing the service in South Korea this month, hoping to iron out bugs before launching in a larger market where mobile payments have begun to grow aggressively. The service will function in a similar fashion to other platforms, such as Apple Pay, as it will be able to store financial information as well as data provided by retailers.
Samsung Pay to make use of NFC technology and tokenization
Samsung Pay will be leveraging NFC technology in order to facilitate transactions. This technology is capable of transmitting digital information over short distances, which is why it has become the backbone for most mobile payments systems. The service will also be using fingerprint verification in order to protect the financial information of its users. Further protection will be provided in the form of digital tokens, which are used to replace consumer financial data in order to protect it from exploitation.
Samsung will be competing with Apple in the mobile payments space
The launch of the new service represents another step forward concerning Samsung’s plans for mobile payments. The service is meant to compete directly with Apple Pay, which is already available in the United States and will soon be available in other markets. Apple has managed to establish a powerful lead in the mobile payments space, largely due to the security that the company has injected into the service.
Mobile payments services continue to face significant challenges that prohibit their success
Though Apple has managed to establish a lead, it still faces many of the challenges that are preventing other mobile payments platforms from finding widespread success. Security is one of the more significant of these challenges. In the past, high profile cyber attacks have called into question the safety of mobile payment platforms, which has limited the appeal of these services among consumers.
BlackBerry has involved itself in the mobile commerce space in the past, but has found limited success in doing so. BBM Money was one of the first mobile payments service from the company, which allowed users to send funds to others. They could also use this service to send people pre-paid mobile credit, which could be used for a variety of purposes. BlackBerry has not found the same success in mobile commerce as other companies, such as PayPal and Google.