Samsung Pay launches in the United States today

Starting from today, owners of high-end Galaxy handsets from Samsung in the United States will be able to use Samsung Pay to pay at all major retail stores. Samsung Pay is the Korean company’s own mobile-based payment service that works with both NFC and MST based PoS.

Samsung had announced earlier this month that Samsung Pay had a successful launch in South Korea, and it managed to process more than $30 million in transactions in just a month since its launch. The payment service had launched in the country on August 20.

Samsung Pay supports all major carriers in the United States, including AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and U.S. Cellular, though devices on Verizon network are not supported at the moment. Additionally, the payment service supports debit and credit cards from Visa, MasterCard, and American Express from Bank of America, Citi or U.S. Bank. While this number is awfully low, Samsung promises that it is working with other major banks in the country to add support for Samsung Pay.

Samsung Pay only works on the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+, and the Galaxy Note 5.

One major advantage that Samsung Pay has over Android Pay and even Apple Pay, is that it works with PoS terminals that only feature MST support. However, the limited device and bank support will be a major hurdle in the mainstream adoption of Samsung Pay in the U.S.