Samsung Pay digital payment system rivalling Apple Pay seemingly gets release date

Samsung pay, touted by the South-Korean technology company's loyalists across the world as the answer to Apple Pay has now got a potential release date.

According to a Whowired Korea report, Samsung's mobile money service will be released in the second half of 2015 in the US apart from Samsung's home country of South Korea.

The Whowired Korea report quotes an official statement made by Samsung Electronics' Managing Director Park Jin-Young, after the Q1 earnings report of Samsung. Park Jin-Young said, "The consecutive release schedule to the rest of the other countries following Korea and the US in the second half of the year is still under discussion. The compatibility option with the smart watch will only be disclosed during the launch."

The above statement, apart from confirming the release of Samsung Pay, also hints at the service offering smartwatch (Wearable) compatibility. However, more information on the Samsung Pay-smartwatch compatibility is yet to surface at this point in time.

As of now, Samsung is said to be giving a next-gen smartwatch the works and it should not be an exaggeration to state that the company's Pay mobile money service will debut once the wearable is released.

This aspect adds meat to the fact that Samsung's smartwatches will support Samsung Pay.

What is Apple Pay?

With the unreleased Samsung Pay mobile wallet service being touted as a competitor to Apple Pay, let's take a closer look at what exactly Apple's Wallet service does.

Apple Pay: This service is a mobile payment option that lets users of Apple's iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 3 and Apple Watch-compatible devices make payments digitally in-app.

Apple Pay is also termed as a mobile payment service that lets certain Apple mobile devices make payments at retail and online checkouts. It digitises and replaces the credit or debit magnetic stripe card transaction at credit card terminals. The service lets Apple devices wirelessly communicate with point of sale systems using a near field communication (NFC) antenna, a customised chip that stores encrypted payment information, and Apple's Touch ID and Passbook.