Samsung Pay comes to Westpac

Westpac customers touting select Samsung smartphones are now able to use Samsung Pay to make contactless payments. Westpac is the first major bank Samsung has partnered with for Samsung Pay, and is the first partner Samsung has added since launch of Samsung Pay in June last year.

Citibank and American Express are the two other financial institutions with Samsung Pay compatible cards.

Samsung Pay is compatible with the upcoming Galaxy S+ and Galaxy S8+, as well as with the S7, S7 Edge, A5 (2017), A7, (2017), S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, and the Note 5. The Gear S2 and Gear S3 are also Samsung Pay enabled.

Samsung Pay differs from other mobile payment solutions due to the fact it can emulate Magnetic Strip Transmission, or MST, which is the protocol used by legacy card readers that don't support contactless payments (although the S6 and S6 Edge don't support MST payments). And of course, you're still able to make NFC payments with it.

As with Apple Pay and Android Pay, Samsung Pay offers tokenised transactions. Rather than sharing card data with a merchant, Samsung Pay creates a one-time account number for each payment you make.

Coinciding with the news, Samsung is planning to launch "NFC provisioning" which will let you add a card to your Samsung smartphone by tapping it on the back of the device.

Alex Choros

Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor | X | Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn

Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

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