Trial run in UAE for Samsung Pay mobile payments

Samsung Pay, first launched in South Korea in August 2015, will allow users of selected Samsung smartphones to use their mobiles to make credit card and debit card payments.

Samsung Pay launched in South Korea in 2015 and is spreading to more countries, including the UAE. Kim Hong-ji / Reuters
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Samsung has announced the launch of the “early access phase” for its Samsung Pay mobile payments services in the UAE, with testing of the service extended to six local banks.

Samsung Pay, first launched in South Korea in August 2015, will allow users of selected Samsung smartphones to use their mobiles to make credit card and debit card payments.

Emirates NBD announced on Tuesday that a select group of its customers had been invited to try out the service in its beta testing phase by enrolling their Visa or MasterCard debit or credit cards to work with their handsets.

Mashreq was the first bank to make the service available to its customers in January. Standard Chartered, First Abu Dhabi Bank, ADCB and RAKBank are all trialling the system.

“We are excited to be in the early access phase of bringing this service to the UAE and we hope to introduce this value-added service to the entire public permanently very soon,” said Mohammad Gharaibeh, the head of IT and Mobiles (B2B) division at Samsung Gulf Electronics.

The service, which competes internationally with Apple’s Apple Pay, was rolled out in India last month, in conjunction with the popular digital payments offering Paytm and five banks.

Samsung Pay is available for owners of the Galaxy S6 Edge +, Galaxy S7/S7 Edge, Galaxy A3 (2017), Galaxy A5 (2016,2017), Galaxy A7 (2016,2017), and Note 5 handsets, as well as the upcoming Galaxy S8 and S8+.

jeverington@thenational.ae

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