Samsung Pay officially launched in India – Know how it works

New Delhi: South Korean tech giant Samsung on Wednesday launched its mobile payment wallet in India.

Samsung Pay has so far been available for select users in India who signed up for its early access program.

Payments through Samsung Pay can be accepted at all places where a physical card will work.

To bring Samsung Pay in India, Samsung has partnered with American Express and is mulling over exploring opportunities with giants such as Visa and MasterCard as well.

The debit and credit cards of Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Standard Chartered Bank can be used as payment cards. However, for SBI Cards, only credit cards can be used as of now.

Apart from allowing users to simply tap and `pay on the go` using their registered cards, Samsung Pay has integrated digital wallet Paytm as well as the government`s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payment system into its app.

Samsung Pay supports MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission), that allows a user to send a magnetic signal from smartphone to the payment terminal's card reader.

However, Samsung Pay only works with high-end premium Samsung smartphones, limiting its reach.

For Samsung Pay, the compatible devices are Galaxy Note5, Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+, Galaxy A7 (2017), Galaxy A5 (2017), Galaxy A7 (2016), Galaxy A5 (2016).

With its launch in India, Samsung Pay is now available in 12 global markets, including South Korea, the US, China, Spain, Singapore, Australia, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Russia, Thailand and Malaysia.