NFC Times Exclusive – Certain point-of-sale terminals from a variety of device manufacturers aren’t yet compatible with Samsung’s proprietary Magnetic Secure Transmission technology, with Samsung Electronics’ promise of universal acceptance of Samsung Pay at card-accepting merchant locations still apparently a far-off target.
Making good on that promise is the reason Samsung is working with the world’s largest point-of-sale terminal manufacturers, as part of deals announced last month, with the South Korean tech giant trying to overcome the technical challenges that prevent Samsung Pay users from tapping to pay at all mag-stripe, as well as on NFC-enabled terminals.
Samsung Pay already is accepted at many more merchant locations than chief rival Apple Pay in the markets where Samsung has launched its mobile payments service–the U.S., South Korea and China–thanks to its combination of NFC technology and Magnetic Secure Transmission, or MST. MST technology taps in on signals emitted by magnetic-stripe readers on POS terminals that are widely deployed globally.