Samsung Pay is one of the fastest growing mobile payment platform in the world alongside the likes of Apple Pay and Android Pay.
While it may not command a similar user base as the company’s entire smartphone industry, the application has been spreading steadily, with recent reports indicating that Thailand and Russia will be among the countries joining the use of Samsung Pay. Now, in another different case, it appears that Samsung will also be launching the service in Canada starting this November.
When responding to a query about the same, the company confirmed to a customer that Samsung Pay services will start operating in Canada beginning the first week of November. This is just days away, but there is no specific date as to when this will be.
Nonetheless, this is good news for those in Canada as they will finally get to enjoy the tap-and-pay services of Samsung Pay. However, you need to have a supported Samsung Galaxy phone in order to use this service. These include this year’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge as well as the 2015 flagships. According to the company’s representative, Samsung Pay will initially work with CIBC VISA cards, but there is no mention of when the likes of MasterCard and AMEX will make the jump.
It was an easy move to include CIBC on board the Samsung Pay bandwagon, especially since the company has been busy venturing into the mobile payment niche. In 2011, the bank was the first to debut NFC-based mobile payments in Canada.
Earlier this year, Samsung had promised that it will be pushing its mobile payment services to the North American country and with this confirmation, it seems the promise will indeed be kept.
What makes Samsung Pay a better option than Android Pay and Apple Pay is the fact that it uses both NFC and MST technology, allowing customers to use it in many stores as opposed to the NFC-specific Android Pay and Apple Pay. However, it might be a problem for the service in Canada since the country relies less on magnetic stripes and more on the EMV-based chip-and-pin technology.