Samsung Prepares For Global Rollout Of Its Mobile Payment System As Users Increase To Over A Million In South Korea Alone

by Czarelli Tuason / Nov 09, 2015 10:00 PM EST

Samsung Pay (Photo by Donald Bowers/Getty Images for Samsung)

Samsung's mobile payment system, Samsung Pay, has reached one million active users in South Korea alone, with over 100,000 daily transactions being made in the country's restaurants, supermarkets and department stores using the system, reported Android Headlines Oct. 26.

To date, $88 million worth of purchases have been made through Samsung Pay since its launch two months ago on Aug. 20, with an average of $1.8 million worth of payments daily compared to the $705,192 in its first few weeks.

Digital Trends noted one of Samsung Pay's feature that other mobile payment services, such as Apple Pay and Android Pay, do not have, which is the Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) that mimics the magnetic strip on credit cards allowing users to pay on regular cash readers, instead of depending solely on near-field communication (NFC) terminals.

Samsung Pay conveniently works offline and online in South Korea and enables cash withdrawals from most major banks within the country.

Samsung is looking at including public transit payment and membership card support by the end of the year, but no confirmation has been announced yet as to whether the U.S. version will be equipped with the same support, noted International Business Times Oct. 26.

The company has extended their mobile payment service overseas when it launched Samsung Pay in the U.S. in September and is now seemingly preparing to go full steam ahead on touching the global market as it reportedly transferred employees to its wireless business division handling Samsung Pay.

The move gave the market the impression that Samsung Pay will be launching in the U.K., Spain and China in the coming months, especially that the service has become a big hit in its home market.

Samsung has positioned their company strongly in the mobile payment system department where NFC payments is viewed to be the prevailing payment system in the near future. Even some industry insiders believe that the system may eventually wipe out the use of credit cards, but probably not anytime soon.

In the effort to boost market volume and enhance services as they go global, Samsung has also reportedly partnered with global financial institutes, including Visa, MasterCard, Citi, Bank of America and American Express.