

Samsung Pay could overtake Apple Pay in mobile payments - stevep2007
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2890885/opensource-subnet/samsung-pay-could-overtake-apple-pay-in-mobile-payments.html?nsdr=true#twitter

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stevep2007
Apple may have lost its lead in contactless payments yesterday when Samsung
introduced its universally accepted Samsung Pay at Mobile World Congress. This
may be somewhat surprising considering just last September Apple convinced the
mobile industry that it had revolutionized credit and debit card payments with
Apple Pay.

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wesnerm2
LoopPay is considered an inferior technology and it has a short life
expectancy ahead of it. It mimics the magnetic swipe of credit cards allowing
it to work on common credit card swipers without NFC. However, credit card
swiping will gradually disappear because it is not as secure as newer
mechanisms that don't transfer credit card credentials to the merchant. These
new mechanisms are mandated by law, because a new rule will shift liability
from cc companies to merchants in the event of fraud. There are other aspects
of Samsung Pay besides LoopPay that I am ignoring, but they won't have the
same market reach as Apple Pay.

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needusername
> These new mechanisms are mandated by law

AFAIK no, it's just that MasterCard and VISA put it in their contracts.

> as newer mechanisms that don't transfer credit card credentials to the
> merchant

AFAIK even with EMV the merchant still gets the PAN, in the case of
tokenization it's just not the "real" one. The Samsung press release mentions
tokenization but it's not clear to me whether this will always be used or is
just an option.

~~~
wesnerm2
The feature that gives Samsung Pay ubiquity comes from LoopPay and mimics
magnetic swiping. It can be used in many places where traditional credit cards
can be used, but not when credit cards need to be inserted such as vending
machines. This does not use tokenization or rely on NFC. Hence it's still as
insecure as a traditional credit card.

Samsung may incorporate tokenization, but that's outside of magentic swiping
and requires NFC terminals. This is where Samsung is lagging Apple Pay.

LoopPay will become obsolete on October 2015, when liability rules shift, and
EMV-based machines replace older machines and chip and pin cards are mailed by
banks to consumers. It's not just Mastercard and Visa (although they are
responsible for the M and V in the name), but also Amex and Discover. These
new machines will support tokenization and NFC. The machines may also
incorporate requirements stemming from the Durbin amendment.

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taylodl
The article doesn't address security. The point of Apple Pay was the merchant,
who've proven themselves untrustworthy, doesn't have any of your credit card
info. If Samsung Pay provides similar functionality then they may have
something. I don't see how they could though without the merchant having to
change their backend processing, thus destroying the ubiquity.

