After declaring its lack of interest in joining Google‘s new Android Pay system for contactless, phone-based payments, UK bank Barclays announced that it would make up for this by creating a similar service of its own, building on the NFC support for its own Barclaycards already started earlier this year.
And in fact, as of today, the service has quietly gone live…
Few things have made the case for an interesting use of the NFC chips inside our phones like contactless payments. Revived by Apple with the introduction of Apple Pay in late 2014, mobile-based transactions have seen an interesting resurgence ever since.
Companies like Samsung and LG have come up with proprietary solutions, but Android users have all found a home under Google‘s very own rooftop with Android Pay. Initially launched in the US alone, the service is now expanding, and after recent promises of a forthcoming launch, it looks like the green light for the UK may be imminent (via Telegraph)…
Mobile contactless payments are progressively becoming more and more mainstream as major manufacturers adopt systems that can be easily used via our smartphones. While LG Pay is yet to be seen in action, Google, Apple and even Samsung all have a technology – Android Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, respectively – that allows a user to complete transactions thanks to the NFC chips contained in most recent devices.
To this day, however, Apple Pay was the only service active in the United Kingdom, leaving a good number of consumers out of the industry, as more than half of the smartphones sold in the country run Android. According to a Telegraph report, however, sources close to the matter have confirmed that Android Pay should go live across Britain within the end of next month, approximately six months after the original US debut…
Samsung Pay will be available in China “as soon as early 2016” after the company signed a deal with card-processor UnionPay. The deal was an essential step as UnionPay has a monopoly on payment terminals in China. Apple yesterday announced its own deal with the company for Apple Pay.
Injong Rhee, Executive Vice President at Samsung Electronics said, “The collaboration with China UnionPay, coupled with the support from major UnionPay partner banks in China, will bring this secure and easy-to-use mobile payment solution to more Samsung mobile users.”
The deal will allow Samsung Pay users to use both swipe and contactless payment terminals, but there is still some red-tape to overcome first …
One of Samsung’s mobile execs has hinted that the company is planning to expand Samsung Pay to cheaper handsets eventually, according to a report by Korea Herald. Shin Jong-Kyun responded “it will gradually expand” when asked specifically if it would move the payment technology to budget handsets at some point.
At launch, Samsung Pay will only be available on the newest flagship phones. The company opened up its beta program to US consumers a couple of weeks back, and is expected to officially launch the payment service at the end of this month.
Samsung Pay is Sammy’s attempt to compete with the likes of Android Pay and Apple Pay in the mobile contactless payment market. The one thing it has on both those platforms, however, is that you can use it virtually anywhere that has a magnetic card strip readers, rather than being limited to just NFC payments like Google’s and Apple’s systems. Its biggest restriction is handset support. Once it’s officially live, Samsung Pay will only work on the Galaxy Note 5, S6 Edge plus, S6 and S6 Edge. For a company with the product portfolio Samsung has, that’s restrictive to say the least, especially if it wants Samsung Pay to become widely adopted and used frequently.
Update: Yep, it’s official.
Update 2: The update to Google Wallet is rolling out now, but you can grab the Android Pay APK over at APKMirror right now. Keep an eye out for our hands-on.
According to the well-connected Artem Russakovskii as well as a Re/code report, Android Pay is set to be launched today. This little tidbit comes despite previous rumors — thanks to leaked Verizon documentation — that the service would be launching on September 16th…
Expand
Expanding
Close
Hot on the heels of unveiling the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, Samsung has also announced its venture into the mobile payment industry. Cleverly dubbed Samsung Pay, the initiative will be compatible with both of the company’s latest flagship devices. Samsung Pay will launch in the United States and South Korea this summer, with Europe and China support to come at a later date.
According to a report out of The Wall Street Journal, Google is currently working to boost its Wallet payment service in order to keep up with Apple Pay. Citing “people familiar with the matter,” the report claims that Google is currently in talks with carriers, banks, and device makers about reviving Wallet. The company currently plans to launch its new service at Google I/O in late May, according to the report.
Samsung announced in a press release this evening that it has purchased LoopPay, an Apple Pay like mobile payment company. LoopPay turns existing magnetic stripe card readers into secure, contactless receivers. This means that, in an ideal world, LoopPay would be available in nearly every retailer that accepts magnetic strip cards. A specific acquisition price is unclear at this point.
Currently most of us have to inform our bank by phone when we’re travelling to avoid purchases in other countries appearing as red flags for fraud and being declined. That could soon change as Visa looks to track smartphones with a service called Mobile Location Confirmation in order to help their security systems become smarter and reduce declined purchases by as much as 30%.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Android users might have raised an eyebrow at the media attention given to Apple Pay, given that the Google Wallet service has been available since 2011. However, it now appears that Google may be benefiting from Apple raising the profile of mobile payment: sources cited by arsTechnica report that Google Wallet service has seen the number of users almost double, with a 50% increase in weekly transactions during the past couple of months …
