Samsung Pay Mini: Mobile payment app to launch on Android and iOS devices

Korean smartphone manufacturer Samsung is planning to launch its mobile payment platform Samsung Pay beyond its own Galaxy phones for Android and iOS devices. Recent reports claim the service which is only available for select Galaxy phones as of now may make an entry on the Google Play Store and Apple Store sometime next month and will be termed Samsung Pay Mini.

As is the case with all of Samsung's products and services, the app will first be rolled out in South Korea and later to other regions. Unlike other mobile wallets, the Samsung Pay Mini will only be available for those devices that have the latest OS version on them like Marshmallow and above for Android and iOS 8 and above for iPhones and iPads.

Unlike Samsung Pay, the platform will not use Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) technology but exclusively process online payments for credit and debit card transactions just like other mobile wallets out there. Currently, online payments using Samsung Pay are not processed directly through Samsung Pay, but by the credit card company itself because Samsung avoids paying a fee for a payment gateway, the service that processes the transaction.

Once the app is live, users can store their credit/debit card information within the app and the payment gateway will automatically process the transaction. To bring about its own touch, users will have to authenticate themselves by a fingerprint scanning or a password.

Once the service is out, its main competition will be with Android Pay which was recently launched in the UK. Samsung Pay is not pre-installed on Galaxy smartphones like Apple Pay is for iPhones.