NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – In the race among the major Pays wallets to add NFC transit ticketing to their mobile payments services, Samsung scored a win over Apple, with today’s launch of “Smart Octopus” with Samsung Pay.
Users of Hong Kong’s popular Octopus transit and retail payment card now can tap to pay with Octopus in the Samsung Pay wallet if they have one of Samsung’s latest flagship devices. It’s believed to be the first use of Sony’s FeliCa contactless technology for mobile transit ticketing outside of Japan.
The flagships, the Galaxy Note 8, Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus, all support Sony’s FeliCa chips and protocols with the devices’ NFC interface. And users can load their Octopus cards into Samsung Pay and top it up with credit or debit cards in the wallet, though top-up fees will apply.