UPDATED: NFC Times Exclusive Insight – Following the launch of Samsung Pay in South Korea, the U.S., and China, Samsung’s launches of its mobile payments service in two new markets, Spain and Australia, both contactless and EMV payments hot spots, will not support the device maker's proprietary Magnetic Secure Transmission technology, which is designed to make nearly all mag-stripe POS terminals potential acceptance points, NFC Times has learned. But in Singapore, Samsung Pay is expected to support MST technology.
Samsung announced the launch of Samsung Pay last week in Spain, the first market in Europe for its wallet, and is expected to announce the launch of Samsung Pay next week in Australia. Both markets boast among the highest penetrations of contactless point-of-sale terminals anywhere. They are also at 100% coverage of EMV point-of-sale terminals or close to it, so most banks and networks in the markets have little interest in supporting mag-stripe transactions.
Samsung Pay is only expected to support NFC in these markets, although it is unclear whether issuer and network American Express will want to support MST in Australia. UPDATE: But Samsung announced June 10 that it will launch in Singapore next week supporting MST, along with NFC. Singapore is also considered a contactless-payments hot spot, but does not have the contactless penetration of either Spain or Australia. END UPDATE.
