Samsung Pay is now officially available in India. After launching the Samsung Pay Early Access programme earlier this month, the company has now made its contactless payment service commercially available on select Samsung smartphones. Samsung Pay supports both NFC and MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission), making it compatible with traditional and NFC-based card readers.
For starters, Samsung Pay will only work on Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+, Galaxy A7 (2017), Galaxy A7 (2016), Galaxy A5 (2017) and Galaxy A5 (2016). Samsung Pay will support cards from leading banks like American Express, Axis Bank, Citibank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, SBI and Standard Chartered. The service also supports Paytm mobile wallet, and integrates UPI for mobile payments.
In order to make payments with Samsung Pay, one needs to open the app, select the card of choice, authenticate it via fingerprint or Samsung PIN, and place the back of the device on the payment terminal to complete transaction. Samsung Pay can be used across any merchant or retail store with a POS machine, card reader or NFC-based payment terminal. Samsung Pay also supports advanced security features like digital tokenisation and default encryption for card data using the company's KNOX security suite.
Samsung Pay's launch comes at a time when adoption of digital wallets and cashless transaction is gaining momentum in the nation. The service will help drive digital transactions, and we may even see the launch of Android Pay and Apple Pay in India. Samsung is also offering exclusive offers on Samsung Pay in collaboration with leading food chains and banks.