Samsung In Talks With Startup For Apple Pay Rival Service

Samsung has their own experience shops inside of Best Buy stores across the nation, and now they're looking to get even more proprietary. A new report details that Samsung is trying to get in on the mobile payment game, and is already in talks with a company that can get them there. In what is a pretty obvious Apple Pay ripoff, Samsung and startup LoopPay are discussing a method for secure NFC payments via Samsung devices. The mobile payment startup already has hardware on the market.

Apple Pay allows for the secure transmission of credit info, but does so by creating one-way encryption rather than transmit your card info. Instead of telling the terminal your card number (and all the details associated with it), Apple Pay creates a transaction ID.

LoopPay is a lot like Apple Pay, but not nearly as secure. According to them, their service works with "100%" of cards and terminals on the planet. Rather than NFC, LoopPay uses a magnetic signal that the terminal picks up on; it's essentially using your card without sliding it.

That also means LoopPay works at any card-swipe terminal, as there is no need for any special hardware from the store.

The partnership — if these discussions mature into one — would put LoopPay on select Samsung phones, likely Galaxy flagships.

Samsung's market share, however, is dropping fast. Magstrip card reading, which LoopPay relies on, is also slowly going the way of the Dodo as the US (finally) begins to support chip-and-pin cards. Though the new EMV cards use magnetic strips as a fallback, the magnetic strip is quickly becoming like the manual card imprint thing stores dust off when the power goes down.

Source: Re/Code