After unveiling the Galaxy Watch 6 series during the Galaxy Unpacked event two days ago, Samsung announced the pricing and availability of its new smartwatches for the Indian market. The Galaxy Watch 6 is now available for pre-order in India. During the price reveal, the company announced that the Galaxy Watch 6 series supports NFC payments (Tap & Pay) in India.
Galaxy Watch 6 gets NFC payments in India via Samsung Wallet
With the Galaxy Watch 6 and the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, users in India can make mobile payments via NFC using the Tap & Pay functionality. It is limited to Samsung Wallet, though. For a long time, Samsung's smartwatches haven't supported NFC payments via Samsung Pay in India. However, that is changing with the Galaxy Watch 6 series as the company launched Samsung Wallet in India earlier this year. It needs to be noted that the feature only works when the Galaxy Watch 6 is paired with a Samsung smartphone.
The first Galaxy Watch featured MST, and it supported mobile payments by emulating magnetic stripe debit and credit cards. However, Samsung removed MST from its smartwatches, starting with the Galaxy Watch Active. It meant that users couldn't make mobile payments via their Galaxy Watches. While newer watches still had NFC, mobile payments via Samsung Pay weren't supported in India.
Thankfully Samsung has activated NFC for mobile payments in India. Users can use Samsung Wallet to register their supported credit and debit cards and pay via their Galaxy Watch 6 and Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. We aren't sure if this feature will come to older Galaxy Watches like the Galaxy Watch 4 and the Galaxy Watch 5 with the One UI 5 Watch and Samsung Wallet update.
Watch our hands-on experience with the Galaxy Watch 6 and the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic below.
