NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Samsung made it official, launching Samsung Pay commercially today in Taiwan with seven banks, as expected, following Apple Pay to the market by about two months and beating Android Pay, which is expected to launch on the island nation as early as next week.
The Samsung Pay banks include Citibank, Taiwan’s No. 5 credit card issuer, which has not launched with Apple Pay. But CTCB, Taiwan’s largest credit card issuer, has decided to pass on Samsung Pay, instead targeting Android Pay and its own wallet. A transit fare-collection service, iPASS, which Samsung plans to add to Samsung Pay in Taiwan did not launch today because of technical issues, NFC Times has learned. The ticketing service is expected in the third quarter as NFC Times earlier reported. Samsung launched a beta version of its mobile payments service in Taiwan on May 3.
Meanwhile, Taishin International Bank, Taiwan’s fourth largest credit card issuer, projected during a Samsung Pay launch event today that it would have 50,000 credit cards loaded into the Samsung wallet by the end of the year. But that is not nearly as many cards as the bank’s customers have loaded into Apple’s Wallet since Apple Pay launched in Taiwan March 29. The bank reportedly revealed today that customers have added 200,000 credit cards for Apple Pay since the mobile payments service launched.
