Samsung announced that it acquired LoopPay earlier this year to compete with Apple Pay and Google Wallet, but the company didn't disclose the amount of money it paid for the acquisition. Now, Re/Code has reported that Samsung may have paid around $250 for LoopPay's acquisition, however officials from both the sides have declined to comment about this.
Also Read: Rooting your Galaxy S6 or S6 edge will disable Samsung Pay
LoopPay, a Massachusetts-based startup, invented MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission), which mimics card swipes at checkout equipments. After acquiring LoopPay, Samsung embedded MST inside the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 edge, and announced its own payment solution dubbed Samsung Pay. Unlike Apple Pay and Google Wallet, which work only with upgraded checkout equipments compatible with NFC payments, Samsung Pay will work with any checkout equipment where buyers normally swipe their credit or debit cards. All the payments through Samsung Pay are secured with a touch-based fingerprint scanner, which is built into the Galaxy S6 and the S6 edge's home button.
Since most of the vendors are expected to upgrade to NFC compatible point-of-sale terminals, the South Korean smartphone giant stated that Samsung Pay will work with NFC as well. Samsung Pay is expected to be launched in the US and South Korea in September. The company is also partnering with CITIC to pave the way for Samsung Pay in China and Hong Kong. To one up its competitors, Samsung isn't charging any extra fee to vendors for using its payment system.
