Samsung Pay Makes U.S. Debut

RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J. — Samsung debuted its Samsung Pay mobile payment platform in the United States Monday, taking on the likes of Apple Pay and Android Pay.

The company has already found success in its home country of South Korea, with Samsung stating $30 million worth of purchases were processed through the payment platform during the first month it was available in the country. More than 1 million transactions were initiated, with 10 percent of customers using the service daily.

However, Samsung, whose U.S. headquarters are based in Ridgefield Park, could find America to be tougher sledding due to restrictions the mobile payment platform has.

According to Ars Technica, Samsung Pay is only available on the Galaxy S6 edge+ and Galaxy Note5 devices, as well as the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge smartphones. In addition, Samsung has not yet struck a deal with Verizon to carry its service.

Also, even though Visa and MasterCard are already onboard with Samsung Pay, the company needs approval from card issuers as well. Thus far, only consumers with cards issued from US Bank, Citi, Bank of America and American Express can currently take advantage of the technology.

“Apple Pay, with its head start of nearly a year, has over 500 banks enrolled in its program, and while figures have not been released yet from Samsung, it's more than likely that the number of U.S. banks will be similar to the couple dozen that Apple had when it launched,” Bob Graham, head of banking and financial services at Virtusa told the news outlet. “Therefore, a bigger impediment for Samsung will be the number of banks supporting it combined with not having Verizon on board."

However, the news source did not count out Samsung Pay as a viable mobile payment option because it purchased a payment technology called Magnetic Secure Transmission, which is meant to emulate a magnetic stripe card.

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