Samsung Pay Is Now Supported By HSBC With American Express ‘Soon’

Samsung Pay now supports credit and debit cards from HSBC, M&S Bank and First Direct, broadening the appeal of the mobile payment service.

The Korean tech giant’s answer to Apple Pay and Android Pay launched in the UK last month, but was limited to MBNA, Nationwide and Santander cardholders.

It is however limited to Visa and MasterCard, but American Express support is on the way, Samsung says. However some of the biggest banks in the country, including NatWest and Barclays are still absent.

Samsung Pay HSBC

The digital wallet works in the same way as other mobile payment platforms, with users able to make payments by tapping their phone on any reader that also supports contactless cards.

Unique features include iris scanning to authenticate payments on the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the ability to nominate a card as a ‘transport’ card so payments on Transport for London (TfL) services such as the bus or the tube are more rapid.

“Since launching in the UK last month, Samsung Pay has provided our UK users with a simple and secure payment method that can be used almost anywhere they can use their contactless payment cards”, said Conor Pierce, Vice President, IT & Mobile Division, Samsung Electronics UK & Ireland.

“We’re delighted to add HSBC to our line-up of supporting partners, helping more people to transform the way they pay for day-to-day items.”

Samsung Pay works on variants of the Samsung Galaxy S6, S7 and S8 while a software update is being rolled out to the Samsung Galaxy A3 and A5 2017 models with more devices supported soon.

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