Samsung is set to add France to the list of countries where the Samsung Pay service is available. The company is looking to spread its tentacles as a way of countering rival company’s service like Apple Pay, which the US company announced in 2014 and is gradually gaining ground in the US and Europe. The South Korean giant will enter France with the Samsung Pay services from September, according to the French website Europe 1.
For the past few months, Samsung had intensified its marketing efforts for the Samsung Pay service in Europe. The mobile payment service was launched in Spain last year and has been favourably met as contactless payments are already in widespread use in the country. The company will also be offering the payment services in the UK as from this May. Information from France indicates that the tech giant is currently in discussions with relevant stakeholders to ensure its success when the payment service debuts in September. Of course, the success of the payment platform is predicated on the number of merchants and partner banks who key into the platform.
The most interesting aspect of the information is that Samsung will likely not launch the app alone, as it would benefit the company more if it debuts alongside a smartphone. To this end, the company is said to be working towards releasing the payment platform along with the Galaxy Note 8 phablet, according to a senior retailer who is familiar with the project. The company is set to take advantage of the huge interest that the re-entry of the Galaxy Note series device will generate. The launch event would enable the company to communicate very well on the subject.
Samsung is presently the highest selling smartphone brand globally and this could prove vital to the success of Samsung Pay in France. The payment platform lets users make payments using compatible phones and other Samsung-produced devices, such as the Gear S3 smartwatch. The service also supports contactless payments using near-field communications (NFC), but also incorporates Magnetic Secure Transmission, an electromagnetic transmission system, that allows contactless payments to be used on payment terminals that only support magnetic stripe cards.
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