Samsung Pay, announced at MWC 2015 this year alongside the new Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, has been set back by at least a few months to September 2015 for the US and Korean markets. The service had originally been slated for a July launch, but in an investor call today a Samsung executive indicated that the service would more likely come in September.
Sadly, this doesn’t bode too well for Australia, as we’re not likely to see the service here for some time after a successful US roll-out. In all likelihood, we may never see it here at all, but at least it hasn’t been ruled out just yet. The service could be quite cool, if/when it launches, but it is already being overshadowed by the announcement of the device-agnostic Android Pay, which will support most newer Samsung phones, as well as most other brands’ Android handsets as well.
Android Pay, launched at Google I/O just a week ago, promises an awful lot, and Google is fairly sure it’ll be available for KitKat devices and above from around the same time — September onwards. Android Pay probably will make it to Australia, but it might not be as quick, what with our different regulatory environment. The good news, though, is that Android Pay uses the same tokenisation technology used by existing NFC payment apps such as CommBank, so there’s one less hurdle to jump.
Personally … if the major banks would get on with a NFC payments like CBA and Peoples Choice then both of these would be irrelevant!
I honestly thought Samsung Pay was ready to go when I bought my phone. I recall the promo videos showing it in action. I don’t recall any kind of indication that it was not yet available.
I’m not majorly disappointed but I feel a bit duped. I was looking forward to no longer needing to carry cards. If I missed it I suspect others did too.
“we may never see it here at all”…why would you say that? that’s just discourages people to buy. And how can U say android pay will make it to Australia….did U know how long ago Google wallet been introduced? this is what happens when writers favour particular manufactures.
I actually spoke with Google at I/O and though it wasn’t enough to go in an article, indications are quite strong that Australia is being looked at as a launch market if/when Google decides to expand Android Pay availability globally.
Thats interesting Daniel. Especially given how Google didnt want to release Wallet in Australia because apparently Australians were a bunch of early adopters and didnt neew Wallet. It didnt make the slightest bit of sense. So why the change of heart from Google?
Android Pay is a completely different animal in the way it uses tokens from credit providers. Google Wallet was quite frankly a hacky systems that the banks and credit providers (Read: Visa/Mastercard) didn’t like.
Also, we know that Android Pay is coming now don’t we. Looks like indications were correct.
Call it intuition informed by common sense and information which we aren’t at liberty to publish. Samsung haven’t said definitively one way or another, that much is true, but with the various factors at play, I don’t see a Samsung-specific product gaining traction if Google bring Android Pay to market. That said, there’s no reason we can’t have both … I’m just being pragmatic.