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Samsung Eyeing LoopPay as Partner for Mobile Payment System to Rival Apple Pay
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That was what I was thinking. The fingerprint scan really has to work great for this to work at all. I don't want to be fumbling around with every purchase.
Once again, Samsung is late to the Party.
By the time they roll this out, Apple Pay will be kicking everywhere & probably owning Square.
By the time they roll this out, Apple Pay will be kicking everywhere & probably owning Square.
There is no "Apple Pay" on the side of the merchant - it is always just a regular NFC payment. The merchant saying they take Apple Pay is a marketing thing, nothing more. The Apple Pay part is on the backend side at the bank/processors.
My best guess is nope. Although they make some industry-leading components, when it comes to making their own products with these components, undercutting the industry leaders (not just Apple) on price, is all that seems to matter. Needless to say user experience and overall product quality are casualties of that philosophy. A sort of "if we can come up with something similar, that's good enough for the average consumer, and at half the price, we can corner the market" approach, that seems to have paid off for them unfortunately.
And I say unfortunately because in the long run this could very well kill true innovation, with a 'lowest-common-denominator' outcome, the polar opposite of what companies like Apple stand for.
That's not going to be anywhere as convenient as it is on the iPhone 6/6+. With the fingerprint reader on the Galaxy devices you have to swipe down from the screen across the home button directly in the center, which is almost impossible to do with their fingerprint scanner. On the iPhone it's easy because it's round and designed to accept the fingerprint from any direction.
Samsung would either have to A - redesign their home button or B - move the location of the fingerprint sensor to make it decently workable.
This is a great idea but by the time this is rolled out NFC will be in every credit card terminal. To be honest, I never realized how previlent it already was until I started using ApplePay.
I wonder if this can still be recognized as a "Mobile Swipe" vs. a "physical Swipe" (similar to NFC vs. Physical Swipe) and be blocked by CurrentC participants... anyone know?
I wonder if this can still be recognized as a "Mobile Swipe" vs. a "physical Swipe" (similar to NFC vs. Physical Swipe) and be blocked by CurrentC participants... anyone know?
Or even in the US after October 2015, when chip becomes "mandatory" in the sense that liability will shift from the card issuer to the retailer for magnetically swiped card transactions. NFC is an option, but even there they already have Google Wallet, so I'm not sure what this adds other than the fingerprint scanner.
Except this isn't NFC payments. This is Samsung actually trying to do something different, when they really didn't have to. Their phones already have NFC chips and access to Google Wallet. All they had to do is promote that. Instead, they're doing something that still involves the antiquated magnetic strip method.
Of course, this is the same company that thinks saving your password in a plain text file stored on the device passes for security.
This is dead on arrival. It require you to use one of their bulky cases or a separate dongle (unless the technology is built into your phone like the new Samsung). Not only that, but it emulates magnetic swipe technology which is dying out all over the world. Even USA is moving to chip+pin/chip+sign which will make mag swipes redundant.
Retailers will be reluctant to accept any magnetic transactions after the introduction of chip+sign as the card companies will be shifting liability for fraud on to them.
http://youtu.be/bw1l149Rb1k?t=1m5s
Retailers will be reluctant to accept any magnetic transactions after the introduction of chip+sign as the card companies will be shifting liability for fraud on to them.
http://youtu.be/bw1l149Rb1k?t=1m5s
I'm surprised they don't try and embrace Google wallet more. Still, when Apple announcedPay I knew we'd see an S Pay or something similar.
I'm not surprised at all. Have you heard of Tizen and S Voice? For better or worse, Samsung has been trying hard to differentiate itself as much as possible from the rest of the Android market. You can see it in their implementation of Google's OS and some of their smart watches.
2 problems like have already been mentioned:
1. The fingerprint scanner on the Samsung products has not proven to be very good, and most people don't use it. Granted this could be remedied by a redesign, that could end up better or worse.
2. This uses the magnetic stripe functionality, which retailers will not want to accept starting late next year. Most of your underlying cards will have chips, and the retailers will probably try to block mag stripe transactions with those numbers through software or something, similar to what Walmart is doing on their terminals, to avoid the fraud liability.
So even if problem 1 is solved, I think problem 2 makes this a non-starter. Samsung should be working with the credit card companies and banks to see if they can work out something similar to Apple Pay for other devices. Although I suspect maybe Apple has exclusivity for a while in the contracts. I would stipulate that if I were Apple. So where does that leave Samsung? I think the best course of action for them would be to do a new partnership with Google promoting Google Wallet, maybe getting to rebrand it on Samsung phones as S-Pay or something similar.
1. The fingerprint scanner on the Samsung products has not proven to be very good, and most people don't use it. Granted this could be remedied by a redesign, that could end up better or worse.
2. This uses the magnetic stripe functionality, which retailers will not want to accept starting late next year. Most of your underlying cards will have chips, and the retailers will probably try to block mag stripe transactions with those numbers through software or something, similar to what Walmart is doing on their terminals, to avoid the fraud liability.
So even if problem 1 is solved, I think problem 2 makes this a non-starter. Samsung should be working with the credit card companies and banks to see if they can work out something similar to Apple Pay for other devices. Although I suspect maybe Apple has exclusivity for a while in the contracts. I would stipulate that if I were Apple. So where does that leave Samsung? I think the best course of action for them would be to do a new partnership with Google promoting Google Wallet, maybe getting to rebrand it on Samsung phones as S-Pay or something similar.
I still don't get it
It is NFC on the phone, but the card reader from the merchant picks it up on their magnetic card reader. But there is no physical card to swipe. How does this work if there is nothing to swipe in the reader?
Most of the times you have to swipe a couple times for it to actually work, and the reader part is right inside the track for the card. I can't imaging those readers working from any distance other than right inside the card track.
It is NFC on the phone, but the card reader from the merchant picks it up on their magnetic card reader. But there is no physical card to swipe. How does this work if there is nothing to swipe in the reader?
Most of the times you have to swipe a couple times for it to actually work, and the reader part is right inside the track for the card. I can't imaging those readers working from any distance other than right inside the card track.
Apple still has a leg up since the iWatch has NFC. Samsung's history with the Galaxy Gear shows not many models have NFC. If the next gears including the Gear 3 have NFC, then there goes the advantage. I would have an iPhone if it wasn't for the Note 4 being so good.
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The Note 4 has a good fingerprint scanner, unlike the S5.
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The Note 4 has a good fingerprint scanner, unlike the S5.
Stupid Samsung, always trying to copy whatever Apple does.. and I don't mean phones, just services in general. Samsung should rely on Google and Google Wallet for their payment system, why go off and do their own thing? To make money.. it will just fail like most of the dozens of apps they junk onto their phones. The only Android phone I would ever buy is a Nexus phone..
No different than almost all car manufacturers copying Audi and the LED brow light.
Just about all cars have copied Audi where the LED brow/beam is no longer unique.
Funny that no one cried foul when people stole Audi's idea...
Loop Pay is not NFC - it mimics the magnetic strip found on most credit cards. Considering that beginning in 2016 merchants will be responsible for losses involving fraud with purchases made with magnetic strips versus Chip and PIN or Chip and Signature...
...this technology is obsolete before it's even out the gate.
...this technology is obsolete before it's even out the gate.
.... and only available in the US. We are still waiting for iTunes radio in the UK so I don't hold out much hope for Apple Pay making it either. Very annoying since contactless payment is very prevalent here.