[Courtesy of Samsung Electronics]
Samsung Pay introduced in 2015 uses a magnetic secure transmission (MST) technique to have a Samsung smartphone mimic the magnetic strips of different credit and debit cards. When a user authenticates his or her identity using verification methods such as fingerprint scanning or passwords, the phone can be used just like a plastic card. Samsung Pay also supports near-frequency communication (NFC) on some point-of-service (POS) or digital cash registers equipped with NFC readers.
The versatility of Samsung Pay quickly became popular in South Korea where 87 percent of smartphone users use Samsung phones (3Q 2022). There were about 15.7 million monthly active users in November 2022. Naver Pay which was launched in 2009 has more than 30 million registered users and has about 650,000 affiliated online stores. Naver's online payment service is mainly used by young online shoppers in their 20s and 30s as the web service giant offers hefty reward points that can be used just like cash.
Samsung said that it started offering Samsung Pay service through Naver Pay on March 23. Users can choose to pay with Samsung Pay when shopping in Naver Pay-affiliated online shopping malls. Naver Pay's integration into Samsung Pay will be finished by the end of March. Naver Pay users can choose the web service giant's digital payment method through the Samsung Pay feature while shopping at offline stores.
The two offline and online digital payment dinosaurs' collaboration came three days after Apple Pay, the digital payment service provided by Apple, landed in South Korea after a long waiting by iPhone users. Apple and various South Korean financial services tried to introduce Apple Pay to South Korea for many years but the attempts were foiled due to undisclosed reasons. Currently, some selected stores and almost every convenience stores support Apple Pay and the number of affiliated offline stores will increase very quickly in the future due to increased demands from consumers.
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
