PLASTIC IS PASSÉ!
Now you can carry all your credit and debit cards on your phone
The flurry of cashless payment options launched soon after demonetisation, ignored one reality. Most of us already have at least one ATM-cum-debit card and many own multiple debit and credit cards. It is a hassle carrying multiple pieces of plastic wherever we go with the threat of losing them and having to block them till we obtain replacements.
Any real innovation in cashless payment technology must address this minor inconvenience. And last week a solution emerged from an unlikely source. Samsung introduced a payment system where one can virtualise all our credit and debit cards and carry them in a mobile phone. The caveat is that the technology only works on a select range of Galaxy smart phones. Fortunately, the list of compatible card issuers is fairly wide and growing — Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, SBI Card, Standard Chartered Bank and soon Citibank.
The solution known as Samsung Pay, integrates all debit, credit card and e-wallets into the phone, so that you can choose to pay from anyone of them. It is a contactless payment system. The user selects the card, authenticates his or her identity using the phone’s fingerprint scanner (or a pre-selected PIN) and brings the phone close to the card swiping machine. The beauty of the solution is that it works with all standard cards, exploiting an existing technology called Magnetic Secure Transmission. That’s the method of sending data using magnetic waves. What next? Paying from your wrist will be available shortly on wearables like the Gear S3 smartwatch.
Samsung Pay, integrates all one’s debit, credit card and e-wallets into the phone