Samsung Pay coming to Europe as Samsung and MasterCard extend partnership

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Samsung and MasterCard have announced that they will be extending their partnership to bring Samsung Pay to Europe.

Samsung is currently trialling its contactless payment service, Samsung Pay, in South Korea, and is set to launch the service Stateside with its next wave of flagship phones.

Samsung Pay will leverage MasterCard Digital Enablement Service for transactions, the same tokenization technology that the iPhone 6 uses for NFC-based payments. In addition to NFC, Samsung Pay will work with magnetic strip technologies (MST), allowing Samsung to reach a wider audience as merchants do not have to upgrade their existing hardware.

Samsung and MasterCard will together roll out Samsung Pay throughout Europe. Card issuers will be able to connect to the MDES platform and activate the Samsung Pay service upon launch. Cardholders from participating issuers can activate their credit, debit, reloadable prepaid and small business cards in the Samsung Pay service and use their mobile devices to make everyday purchases.

Injong Rhee, EVP of Samsung Electronics, Global Head of Samsung Pay said,

“Samsung Pay is pleased to join forces with MasterCard to offer a simple and safe mobile payment experience enabled for wider merchant acceptance to MasterCard cardholders and issuers in Europe,”.

“Both organizations are committed to ground breaking fin-tech innovations that will deliver on the promise of a true mobile wallet.”

Javier Perez, President of MasterCard Europe said,

“With the continued global growth and reliance on connected mobile devices, we are delighted to expand our relationship with Samsung by extending the reach of Samsung Pay and MDES to cardholders in Europe. Europeans have been leading the way in the adoption of new ways to shop, buy and make a payment. Through our strong partnership with Samsung we look forward to continuing to drive innovation in mobile commerce by creating simple and secure digital payment experiences for consumers,”

Samsung Pay is scheduled to launch in the U.S. and South Korea later this summer and Samsung is currently working with banks and partners to bring the payment service to Europe.