Samsung Pay, Samsung’s eponymous answer to mobile payments competition from the likes of Apple (Apple Pay) and Google (Android Pay), is gaining a veritable bevy of new features. In an announcement timed to coincide with the Money 20/20 conference in Las Vegas, Samsung took the wraps off a redesigned mobile payments app, support for new countries, online payments, and integration with new merchant partners.
First up: Samsung Pay is coming to three new countries. The Seoul, South Korea-based company announced that by the end of this year, the service will launch in Malaysia, Russia, and Thailand, an expansion that’ll bring the total number of supported countries to 10. It comes on the heels of an international rollout earlier this year to Spain, Singapore, Australia, Brazil, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
The company also announced a partnership with Mastercard that will see online retailers which accept Masterpass, the payment processor’s express checkout service, extend that support to Samsung Pay later this year. That includes “hundreds of thousands” of merchants in 33 countries, Samsung said.
The integration is holistic. When you go through an online checkout with Samsung Pay using an attached Mastercard debit or credit card, you won’t have to fill out form data — your saved shipping and billing details will automatically populate the relevant fields. Masterpass support extends to mobile phones and tablets in addition to desktops and laptops — the experience is consistent across devices. And it uses Masterpass’s tokenization to encrypt transactions, meaning payments made online send a token in lieu of a debit or credit card number, and authenticate with the fingerprint sensor built into Samsung’s mobile devices.
“When we introduced online payments in South Korea last year, the service was well received by the market. Online payments accounted for more than 25 percent of the 2 trillion won in processed transactions, demonstrating that consumers may be actively looking for solutions to make their online experiences faster, simpler, and secure,” Samsung Pay’s vice president, Thomas Ko, said in a statement. “By partnering with Masterpass in the U.S. and rolling out online payments globally, we will simplify the online transaction experience by eliminating the need for customers to fill out tedious online checkout forms, remember long passwords, or fumble for their wallets.”
That isn’t Samsung’s only current mobile payments bombshell. In November, Samsung Pay will gain a new in-app tab, Deals, that will provide a means of locating and redeeming discounts for nearby restaurants and stores. Also in November, Samsung Pay users will gain the ability to make in-app purchases with cards loaded to their account, initially with partners Velocity, Raise, Hello Vino, Wish, and Touch of Modern. Samsung is also partnering with Capital One and USAA to support over 500 banks and credit unions “representing over 85 percent of the U.S. debit card and credit card market.”
It’s all part of Samsung’s “Payment+” strategy, which aims to transition Samsung Pay from a payments platform to a one-stop mobile coupon, loyalty, and ticketing stop. Starting next month, Samsung Pay will gain the ability to store more than 4 million membership and loyalty cards from retailers like Safeway, CVS, Walgreens, Starbucks, Macy’s, and Sears. And it will rewards users with savings for sharing purchases on social media and meeting certain purchase thresholds.
“We decided that [Samsung Pay] will be more than just payments,” Ko told VentureBeat. “We wanted to be closer to the lifestyle of the user.”
