Galaxy Watches could soon get Samsung Pay in South Korea, thanks to Apple

As lame as it sounds, Galaxy Watch users in South Korea can't make mobile payments using Samsung Pay on their smartwatch. Although those smartwatches feature NFC, Samsung Pay isn't available to them in Samsung's home country. However, that could change soon, thanks to Apple.

Apparently, Samsung is thinking of activating the Samsung Pay feature on its smartwatches that are equipped with NFC. It is reportedly bringing this feature after it faced pressure from Apple Pay which was just launched in South Korea. Only those Samsung smartwatches support mobile payments in Korea that have MST. However, Samsung has not equipped its recent smartphones and smartwatches with MST. All recently released Galaxy Watches have NFC, though. If the company decides to activate NFC payments, almost all its smartwatches will get the Samsung Pay feature.

Galaxy Watches with NFC can get Samsung Pay feature to compete with Apple Pay

Currently, NFC payments are not prevalent in South Korea. However, with the introduction of Apple Pay (which only supports NFC), a lot of large format stores are expected to bring NFC-compatible PoS machines. So, Samsung Pay collaborated with Naver Pay to strengthen its mobile payment offering. When asked about the possibility of Galaxy Watches getting Samsung Pay NFC, a Samsung executive said, “It is difficult to officially confirm” and added that “nothing has been decided yet.”

Samsung Pay (now renamed Samsung Wallet) is superior to Apple Pay in terms of versatility. It supports MST, NFC, and even QR code payments (in India). Apart from credit/debit cards, Samsung Wallet can also store gift cards, ID proofs, login passwords, membership cards, NFTs, prepaid wallets, and vaccination certificates. Samsung recently collaborated with Hana Financial to add student IDs and employee IDs to Samsung Wallet.

Asif Iqbal Shaik - Senior Editor

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First Samsung device: T100

Asif is a computer engineer turned technology journalist. He has been using Samsung phones since 2004, and his current smartphone is the Galaxy S21 Ultra. He loves headphones, mechanical keyboards, and PC hardware. When not writing about technology, he likes watching crime and science fiction movies and TV shows.

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