Samsung is extending the reach of its mobile payment service online and in real life.
Looking to the latter, the company says it will launch Samsung Pay in Malaysia, Russia, and Thailand by the end of the year. Apple Pay launched in Russia earlier this month, but Samsung Pay could leapfrog ahead by debuting in Malaysia and Thailand, where Apple Pay has yet to assert itself.
Samsung Pay’s online expansion, meanwhile, is mostly occurring via a new collaboration with Mastercard that has seen Samsung Pay incorporated as a payment option into the latter’s Masterpass digital payments service. While it’s safe to assume most users will probably opt to keep paying with Samsung Pay for in-store mPayments, the partnership should help to significantly expand Samsung Pay’s availability for web-based transactions; the companies say that Masterpass is accepted as an online payment method by hundreds of thousands of merchants across 33 countries.
Samsung is also planning new initiatives that should further promote its mPayment service starting next month. For one thing, Samsung Pay will appear as an in-app payment option with merchants including Hello Vino, Fancy, Raise, Touch of Modern, Velocity, and Wish, and Samsung says more such merchant partners are in the pipeline. It’s also going to launch a Deals feature that will let users see which nearby stores have special offers for Samsung Pay purchases. That could get users opening the app a bit more frequently, and together with Samsung’s various other new efforts, it might attract some new users, too.
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