The mobile payment service Samsung Pay could be headed to iPhone – albeit in a watered-down, online-only form – next month, according to a report by the South Korean news outlet ETNews.
While Samsung Pay can be used on a number of recent Samsung handsets in the United States and South Korea for both online and in-store payments, the latter make up more than 20% of all payments made through the service. This has apparently led Samsung to develop a new app…
That app, said to be dubbed Samsung Pay Mini, will accept the registration of payment cards which can then be used for an automated payment process at online stores. This looks set to address the current cumbersome method of using online Samsung Pay, which involves having to choose Samsung Pay from a large choice of certification methods at the checkout stage.
Especially intriguingly, ETNews reports that Samsung Pay Mini “can be used on Android phones as well as iPhones”. It looks likely that Samsung will give the app and service an initial run in its homeland of South Korea before judging whether they are worth bringing to other major markets.