Samsung Pay to expand into Europe through Spanish partnership

Samsung's mobile payment service, Samsung Pay, is getting closer to a European launch, through a partnership with Spanish CaixaBank. CaixaBank has its own mobile payment service, CaixaBank Pay, which it launched last year; Samsung devices will now be compatible with this service. To date, Samsung Pay has only been available in the US and South Korea, but the electronics company is thought to be moving to introduce the service to parts of Europe and China in 2016. Its compatibility with a much wider range of wireless payment terminals has put Samsung Pay in a strong position relative to its rivals.

Samsung’s mobile payment service, Samsung Pay, has so far only been rolled out in the US and South Korea, with rumours that it will come to UK shores early in 2016, some sources say that it be as early as the first quarter of 2016 and be launched in China and Spain as well.

The latter part seems to be coming true as CaixaBank has just partnered with the South Korean telco and electronics giant to include Samsung Pay in its mobile payment method offer.

CaixaBank launched its first mobile payment service, CaixaBank Pay, based on Host Card Emulation technology, last September, and this agreement enables CaixaBank to enhance the range of mobile payment services offered by the bank.

The partnership means it has become the first bank in Spain to offer the mobile payment service. Customers from CaixaBank and imaginBank will be the first to enjoy the service, which can be used to make purchases almost anywhere you can currently pay with a contactless credit or debit card. This is because Samsung, unlike Apple, ensured its service was able to work with not only contactless terminals but also with ones that were only able to process the older magnetic stripes on the back of credit and debit cards.

Samsung Pay works in more than 70 per cent of stores in Spain that already operate with contactless technology, amounting to over 600,000 payment terminals.

The service has been tested over the last few weeks and will be offered to customers in the coming months. After the launch of the service, users can download their CaixaBank debit or credit cards on their smartphones in order to make payments.