What is Samsung Pay?
Samsung Pay is a mobile payment service and more like a digital wallet from Samsung that allow users make the payments using their Samsung Pay enabled devices. The most important thing here is the payment made through Samsung pay is contact-less. I guess I do not have to explain what is the imprtance of keeping distance in the on-going pandemic situation.
Personally, I am a Samsung Pay India user where Samsung made an agreement with almost all popular banks to work with Samsung Pay. Hence, with a compatible device we can actually ditch our regular wallet and be tension-free if you forgot your wallet at home. In India, list of all supported banks can be seen below.
Due to the fact that I am an Indian user, you may find some India specific Samsung Pay features in this article.
How it Works?
Just like its competitors like Apple and Google Samsung also uses NFC (Near Field Communication) to connect the swiping machines wirelessly to make transactions. This is quite fine in all NFC enabled terminals but not in regular card machines. But what makes Samsung Pay superior is, Samsung Pay has patented technology called MST (Magnetic secure transmission) with which payments can be made through regular swiping machines which makes Samsung Pay broadly accepted mobile payment service globally.
How Secure is Samsung Pay?
In normal card transactions, your card number will be read by the card machine and when you enter the ATM PIN (In some countries ATM PIN is not required for shopping) in card machine. During the transaction your bank will check whether your card number and ATM PIN matches, if it does, transaction will become successful. There is a flaw in this kind of transaction that your actual card number is being transferred to an outside machine.
This is where Samsung pay bring an additional layer of security.
When you add your Credit/Debit card to Samsung Pay, it will create a digital card number for Samsung Pay which is difference from actual card number. This digital card number cannot be used outside Samsung Pay. In addition to this, during each transaction, Samsung pay would create a random token instead of card number which would be unique to each transaction. This means actual card information is not shared while making transactions.
All these security layers will be managed Samsung patented proprietary solution called Samsung KNOX which will monitor the phone all the time looking for vulnerabilities. On top of this, even if the phone is lost, the card information will be kept safely in secure data vault which cannot be broken through. With Samsung findmymobile activated, we can remotely lock the mobile and reset the phone.
Additional services offered by Samsung pay India:
In addition to the cardless shopping, In India, Samsung Pay also offers the choice of UPI transactions, Online wallet integration with various payment services like Paytm, MobiKwik, etc. In addition to this, Samsung pay has partnership with Paisabazaar which offers the user to request various loans via Samsung pay and generate Cibil report at free of cost via Samsung Pay application.
How to Setup Samsung Pay?
If you have a device that supports Samsung pay, open Samsung pay app and click on Add option to add cards. You can enter the card information manually or scan the card using camera.
You will then need to authenticate card to Samsung pay using an OTP which you receive on your mobile which is registered with the bank from where the card is issued.
As final step, you will have to put sign on the digital card using fingers.
Procedure is almost similar while adding online wallets as well.
How to use Samsung pay:
Before making any transaction using Samsung Pay, we should authenticate with either PIN or fingerprint.
BY entering PIN or authenticated with fingerprint, Samsung pay app will put the selected card in readable mode with a nice animation. Place your phone near the card machine and enter the PIN in card machine if required. That’s it. Your cardless transaction is succeeded. Simple isn’t it?
Picture source: Google
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfKL36D3tHY
Devices those supports Samsung pay:
Not all the devices from Samsung supports Samsung Pay due to the lack of NFC and other reasons. The devices which supports Samsung Pay are,
Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20+, Galaxy S20 Ultra, Galaxy Note 10, Galaxy Note 10+, Galaxy A70, Galaxy A80, Galaxy A30s (NFC*), Galaxy A50s (NFC*), Galaxy S10+, Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10E , Galaxy A70 Galaxy Note9, Galaxy S9+, Galaxy S9, Galaxy Note8, Galaxy S8+, Galaxy S8, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S7, Galaxy S6 edge+, Note 5, Galaxy A8+, Galaxy A7 (2017), Galaxy A5 (2017), A5 (2016), A7 (2016), Galaxy A9 Pro and Galaxy J7 Pro.
In addition, you can use Samsung pay in your Samsung wearables which will makes it very easy to use Samsung Pay. You do not even need to pull the mobile from your pocket for making transactions.
Please feel free to ask me if any questions. And, if you like the article, give your thumbs up.
