Samsung Pay Expands Canadian Partnerships

Contactless payment has a few new options in Canada.

Samsung announced the expanded availability of Samsung Pay, a mobile payment system accepted almost anywhere a customer can swipe or tap a card. Several new partners were added to the contactless payments feature, including Interac Debit, Scotiabank, American Express Canada, ATB Financial, Visa Canada and Mastercard. Tangerine and Peoples Card Services will be added soon.

Samsung originally rolled the service out with CIBC in Canada but now wants to make the experience more holistic for their users. The new expansion represents almost every large payment service in the country.

“We are excited to deliver an industry-leading offering with Samsung Pay that redefines how to simply, more securely and conveniently use smartphones for a variety of payment experiences so that Canadians are not without the card they need,” said Paul Brannen, COO of Samsung Electronics Canada.

The continued expansion into contactless payment is a natural one as banking insights have shown a yearly decline in cash usage on average of five per cent per year since 2011.

Samsung Pay is simple to use, as customers merely have to swipe up, scan their fingerprint or input a PIN then tap to confirm the payment. This comes with several security levels, including the biometric fingerprint, tokenization and Samsung Knox, the company’s defense-grade security platform.

The contactless payment service is currently available in 20 countries, and partners with over 870 major global brands and banks. As adoption of the service grows, Samsung will add more and more companies and institutions.

Last month Moneris released a report detailing how important contactless payment is to the retail industry. The total dollars “tapped” away in Canada grew over 50 per cent in the third quarter and will likely rise more over the holiday season.

Accenture also recently released a report detailing the importance of digital wallets, finding that 23 per cent of consumers would gladly ditch their mobile banking app for a consolidated digital wallet like Samsung Pay.

The newly expanded service joins the likes of similar digital wallets including Apple Pay, Android Pay and Masterpass.