Samsung recently announced the Early Access Program inviting users with compatible devices and cards to use Samsung Pay. The registration was last week and now Samsung has flipped the switch on the users wanting to use the service. I tried out today to pay at Burger King via Samsung Pay today and it worked flawlessly despite some confused looks from the attendant and his manager. Oh, and you still have to put in the card PIN because that is mandatory, thanks to RBI.
Contactless payment is not new. In fact, some of the cards and services like Apple Pay and Android Pay offer them. While Apple and Google are yet to make a move, Samsung has been proactive to provide contactless payment in the Indian market that has seen a surge in digital transactions, post the demonetisation of old currency notes by the government.
The thing that works for Samsung is the support for NFC contactless payments and MST, short for Magnetic Secure Transmission. What MST does is that it allows users to transact at old POS machines that do not have NFC.
Interested users can right now register at this link.
[Props to NDTV’s Roydon Cerejo for clicking the image]
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