Samsung has today announced that it’s digital wallet, Samsung Pay, is now available to HSBC, First Direct and M&S Bank cardholders.
The new services join a growing list of banks which include MasterCard, Visa, MBNA Nationwide and Santander. Samsung Pay has the benefit of working with older technology such as Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) and EMV, giving them a big advantage over rival technologies which have chosen to only support newer contactless standards.
Samsung has worked with TfL on exclusive functionality for Samsung Pay. It allows users to set a payment card as a ‘transport card’, which can then be used on all TfL services and most National Rail services in London. This allows commuters to simply tap their phone against the card reader, eliminating the need to wake their phone or verify with a fingerprint or passcode.
The announcement comes shortly after Samsung has begun expanding the service to more affordable devices. Currently, it’s only available for users of flagship devices like Samsung S8, Samsung S7 Edge, S7 and S6 Edge Plus among others. Markets such as India are expecting this to increase with the release of the J7 Max and Pro. UK markets will see the service roll out to the A3 2017 and A5 2017 devices.
