The relatively warm acceptance of Apple Pay – Apple’s wireless payment system that allows owners of the latest iPhone models to wave their smartphone instead of swiping your card to pay – has probably forced Samsung to look for a competing system using its own line of smartphones. The South Korean gadget giant is reportedly in talks with US payments startup LoopPay to make this happen.
Nothing is final, and neither Samsung nor LoopPay executives would comment on the rumor, but the deal has to be hammered down pretty fast for the infrastructure and the system to be online by the time the Samsung Galaxy S6 comes out – rumored to be in March at the Mobile World Congress in Berlin. The Galaxy S6 – as with its predecessor the Galaxy S5 – will look to have fingerprint recognition in place to make the payments system work.
Apple Pay works pretty much as you imagine a wireless payment system to work – it lets iPhone owners pay for items in stores by placing their phone close to the Apple Pay checkout equipment. Users then complete the purchase by authenticating through the phone’s fingerprint identification sensor.
We imagine Samsung’s process would look about the same as this, only that LoopPay’s current system mimics a swipe with a card – so in theory, it might work in more locations than Apple Pay or even Google Wallet, as it utilizes the same equipment as a swipe terminal for a traditional credit card. Nothing is solid yet, and the deal may yet break down, but Samsung will feel that it is imperative for them to finalize this one in light of flagging smartphone sales.
VIA: ReCode