An email sent to all Samsung Wallet users reveals the South-Korean company is planning to terminate the e-wallet service on 30th June 2015. However, the email gives no reason for the discontinuation.
The email says users will not be able to use coupons after the termination date, but any tickets users have acquired can be accessed via the company’s partners’ applications.
The most logical reason for the termination of the service is of course Samsung Pay, the company’s response to Apple Pay. The South-Korean company has announced in March that the new service will be rolled-out in the second half of the year, starting with South-Korea and the US and gradually worldwide.
The discontinuation of Samsung Wallet suggests that the introduction of Samsung Pay could be sooner rather than later this year.
The new service will provide the same service as Apple Pay meaning customers can use NFC technology to pay with their mobile phones. Samsung also says the service will have ‘a new proprietary technology called Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST)’ that means the smartphones can act as payment cards and therefore be accepted at traditional magnetic stripe terminals.
The MST technology comes from a start-up bought by Samsung, reportedly for a fee of $250m. The technology allows the magnetic card reader to read the smartphone as if it were a traditional payment card.
According to reports, Samsung believes that only 10 per cent of merchants are able to use Apple Pay technology, suggesting the company is hoping the MST technology will be more accessible and popular than the advanced Apple Pay technology.
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