This Techradar article gives us a lot to consider! It indicates that Samsung may announceSamsung Pay with the release of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and that it may haveLoopPay technology embedded within it. Initiallythe articledives into the history and comments on the silly name:
“Wefirst heard that Samsung might be working on an Apple Pay competitor late lastyear and now it looks like we might be about to see it, as new information hascome flooding in about Samsung’s contactless payment service.
Thesystem, which is likely to debut on the Samsung Galaxy S6, is apparently calledSamsung Pay, which we kind of hope is true for the sheer ridiculousness ofhaving a name that similar to its main competitor.
Thename was revealed by SamMobile, which also reports that Samsung has partneredwith Visa, which could potentially mean that any card issued by Visa willsupport Samsung Pay.”
The rumor that LoopPay has successfully shrunk itstechnology down to a size that enables it to reside inside a mobile phone isalso discussed:
“Butthere’s more, because some Samsung Pay details have also been revealed toBGR,which heard from a “trusted source” that it works with 90% ofexisting magnetic stripe and NFC payment terminals.
Thatcould mean that it will quickly and easily become widely available and not facesome of the hurdles that Apple Pay does.
Infact that lines up with the original rumours we heard last year, which statedthat Samsung was in talks with a payments startup called LoopPay to implementthe system.”
It will be fascinating to see if LoopPay has shrunksufficiently to be embedded into the mobile handset and if it is utilizing aPAN or a token. It is also an openquestion if the hardware design is unique to Samsung, or if LoopPay may becomethe standard hardware that incorporates the Secure Element, NFC, and LoopPaycapabilities that gets deployed across most mobile handsets, delivering a morestandardized infrastructure for payments across a very fragmented androidhandset market.
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP technology Innovation for Mercator Advisory Group
Read full article at TechRadar