Mobile World Congress: Samsung aiming to win payments war

"Mobile commerce just got a lot more interesting," Visa executive vice-president Jim McCarthy said in response to Samsung Pay.

Samsung unveiled the new mobile payments system at Mobile World Congress, and hopes it will trump Apple Pay. Mr McCarthy said the new system will give more choice to financial institutions who want to enable their customers to pay by phone.

The new payments system - Samsung Pay - will work with near-field communications (NFC), as well as with magnetic strip technology, meaning it can be used to make purchases at almost any electronic payment terminal.

Apple Pay and Google’s Android Pa can talk only to terminals that use NFC technology.

This has led to a slow adoption rate as less than ten per cent of US retailers can accept contactless payments/NFC technology, but almost all can accept magnetic strip card payments, whereby the credit or debit card is swiped.

Samsung chief executive JK Shin said Samsung Pay “will reinvent how people pay for goods and services and transform how they use their smartphones”.

Samsung Pay will initially be available in the US and South Korea this coming summer, before being expanded into other regions including Europe and China.

The new system has the potential of being accepted at approximately 30 million merchant locations worldwide according to Samsung.