Samsung launches Samsung Pay platform in India; here's how it works

Samsung has finally launched its mobile payment platform Samsung Pay in India. Samsung has already opened for registrations in India on its official website via Samsung.com/in/samsung-pay/. Samsung Pay is available with certain banks such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, SBI Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and Axis Bank. Ahead Samsung Pay will be supported by Citi Bank and American Express.

It now supports the credit and debit cards of all of these banks, with the exception of SBI which only supports its credit cards. Apart from this, Samsung Pay will also let users pay via Paytm wallet.

Samsung Pay works everywhere you can swipe your card. It works on the systems of Near Field Communication (NFC) and Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) that allows users to send magnetic signals from smartphone to the payment terminal's or PoS machines. Through MST, merchants can accept payments on regular card machines which makes Samsung Pay the most widely accepted mobile payment service.

Some of the Samsung devices on which Samsung Pay is supported includes Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S7, Note 5, S6 edge plus, A5 (2016) and A7 (2016) and all other new models of Samsung to follow.

“Samsung Pay offers a simple and convenient payment experience that is quicker than searching through your wallet or purse. Additionally, Samsung Pay adds a level of security to your payment information that physical cards don’t have,” the company said. It has three levels of security as it uses either finger print authentication or PIN Authentication, followed by digital tokenisation which uses a random token instead of card number and has Samsung KNOX which constantly monitors the phone for vulnerabilities and keeps the card information encrypted.

Currently Samsung Pay only supports in-store payments and cannot be used to make online purchases.

So, how do you use Samsung Pay? For that users will first need to register on the Samsung website and will need to install the Samsung Pay app. If you do not find the Samsung Pay icon on your device ensure that the device software is updated to the latest Android software. Then add the Samsung Account ID by going to Settings > Accounts > Add Samsung Account. Click on Samsung Pay icon, download and install the Samsung Pay app.

Once you have downloaded and installed the Samsung Pay app there is a one-time registration process and can be done using the Samsung Account ID and password. In the setup, users can opt for skip and use Samsung Pay PIN on the verification method page. For adding new cards, click on Add your Debit/Credit Card which by default starts the camera within the app so that it auto read card details. It can also be done manually.

For those users adding Paytm, users can add their Paytm account through the Wallet option in Samsung Pay.

To use Samsung Pay the user has to select the card they want to use by swiping left or right. Once they select the card the user need to authenticate by using their fingerprint or PIN. Then the user has to place the phone near the POS machine or card reader or NFC reader to complete the transaction.