And so the Samsung vrs. Apple payment battle begins…

Last updated: 19 February 2015

It was only a few months ago that we considered whether Apple Pay would set the payments world alight.  We concluded, with a little help from Gartner, that ‘Apple Pay represents a good first step for Apple in the mobile payment market, but obstacles remain for the company’.

Since then, true-to-form, Samsung has just announced it is following Apple into the arena, with the acquisition of mobile payments startup Loop Pay and the much rumoured launch of its Samsung Pay service at MWC 2015. Loop Pay claimed it covers the biggest acceptance network in the US, more so than Apple Pay, mimicking mag stripe technology through an add on to the phone.

We don’t have the details yet of if and how LoopPay will be embedded (or not) in Samsung next S6 phone along with (or not!) NFC.

Either way, it’s exciting news as it marks another step towards mass adoption of mobile contactless payments and NFC – Transport for London’s launch of mobile payments back in September being the tipping point.

With some 33% of Brits alone believing that by 2020 more payments in the UK will made using smartphones than on credit or debit cards, the time is ripe for for payment providers to get fully interoperable and fully secure standards for managing mobile contactless payments.

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