The world is finally getting a look at Samsung Pay, the latest entry in the mobile payments space.
At yesterday’s Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event in New York, Injong Rhee, head of payments for the the Seoul-based conglomerate, unveiled the long-awaited Samsung Pay. Samsung’s payments service employs NFC, much like Apple Pay, but is backed up by a magnetic solution formerly known as LoopPay that works on magstripe card readers. This gives the service far more compatible terminals than Apple Pay, but it will face stiff competition from the soon-to-be-launched Android Pay. Samsung Pay comes out of beta on Aug. 20 in Korea, but won’t roll out in the U.S. until September 28, Rhee said.
Visa, American Express, MasterCard, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and U.S. Bancorp are all on board — but not Wells Fargo & Co.
And here’s a video from Engadget with some info on how the beta testing has gone in Korea and a hands-on demo of the service working.