Samsung Pay arrives in Hong Kong

Samsung Pay has finally landed in Hong Kong. The Korean technology giant launched an early access program in the Hong Kong market last month, but officially launched the mobile payment system to the general public last Thursday.

Samsung Pay can be used almost anywhere a point-of-sale (POS) terminal is available and supports payments via both near field communication (NFC) and Samsung’s proprietary magnetic secure transmission (MST) technologies.

According the maker of the Galaxy smartphone, MST sends a magnetic signal from the supported Samsung device to the payment terminal’s card reader (to emulate swiping a physical card), allowing Samsung Pay to work almost anywhere cards are accepted.

“We are happy to have received overwhelming, positive responses from users of Samsung Pay’s Early Access Program,” said Yiyin Zhao, vice president and head of information technology and mobile communication business for Samsung Electronics Hong Kong.

“We look forward to building a complete digital wallet solution in Hong Kong, which will allow users to not only pay conveniently, but also use membership cards and many more.”

Several major banks in Hong Kong, including Citi and DBS, are set to offer incentives to encourage customers to pay for items using credit cards via Samsung smartphones, The incentives include discounted food, drink and toiletries, as well as free mobile phones.

The perks come as the South Korean company enters the Hong Kong mobile e-pay market relatively late. Apply Pay launched its mobile payments service in July last year, while Google launched Android Pay in October. Several of the mainland’s technology giants, including Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group Holding’s financial arm Ant Financial Services Group, have also launched WeChat Wallet and Alipay, respectively, in the city.

Samsung Pay is available on Galaxy S8+, Galaxy S8, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S7, Galaxy S6 edge+ and Galaxy Note5.