Skip to content
Samsung Pay Now Available to UK Visa Cardholders

Press release -

Samsung Pay Now Available to UK Visa Cardholders

London, 16 May 2017:With today’s launch of Samsung Pay,UK Visa account holders can now use their compatible Samsungsmartphones for purchases worldwide. Visa’s tokenisation service enables cardholders to add their Visa credit and debit cards quickly and easily to the Samsung Pay wallet and pay in a secure and convenient way at contactless point-of-sale terminals. Samsung Pay is now available to Visa cardholders who bank with MBNA, Nationwide and Santander.

Kevin Jenkins, Regional Managing Director, UK and Ireland, Visa, commented: “Today’s launch of Samsung Pay gives Visa account holders a mobile payment solution that enables safe and easy contactless in-store payments with their Samsung mobile. The phone is the one item people always have with them and Visa supports payment solutions that fit people’s changing lifestyles.”

Mobile Payment gets more popular

Visa’s 2016 Digital Payment study shows that there is high consumer demand for mobile payment solutions in the UK, with over 94% of the UK’s 18-24 years olds already using their mobile device to monitor their money or make payments. In fact, Visa predicts that payments from mobile devices will comprise 50% of all worldwide transactions by 2020. According to the study, more than four in ten people in the UK use their phones to pay bills (42 percent), buy takeaway food (45 percent), and pay for bus or train tickets (41 percent).

Visa in Samsung Pay

To pay, simply swipe up on the phone’s screen to select your Visa card of choice and confirm the payment via fingerprint, iris scan or passcode. With the Smartwatch Gear S3 the payment can be started with a touch of a button. The authorisation is conducted via passcode when putting on the Smartwatch. To complete the payment, simply tap the device on any contactless enabled POS terminalsto pay contactless with as you would with your Visa card. Payments are confirmed immediately with a message sent to the Samsung device. Merchantsthat already accept contactless payment do not need to update their terminals to accept payments with Samsung Pay nor will there be any additional cost for the merchant or the Visa cardholder since the transaction is a Visa card transaction.

When a consumer loads their card into Samsung Pay, the app uses Visa tokenisation to replace the consumer's sensitive account information with a different series of numbers – a “token” – that is specific to that card and device. Payments are made using the token so that the card information is never exposed, adding another layer of safety to digital payments. If the phone is compromised or stolen, the token cannot be used in any other environment and can easily be deactivated without requiring the Visa account to be cancelled. 

With the Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, Samsung Pay* can be used to touch and pay wherever Visa contactless debit cards or credit cards are accepted.

*Samsung Pay is available in UK for the following devices: Samsung Galaxy S6, Samsung Galaxy S6 edge, Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+, Samsung Galaxy S7, Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017), Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016 und 2017), Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+ and soon on the Samsung Gear S3.

About the ‘Digital Payments’ report

Visa commissioned the Digital Payments research with Populus. The research was conducted between August and September 2016 in 19 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the UK. The total sample size was 36,843 consumers, with approximately 2,000 respondents per country.

Contacts:

Rica Squires

squiresr@visa.com

+44 (0)207 297 1179

europeanmedia@visa.com
0207 795 5336 

Topics

Categories


About Visa Inc.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable electronic payments. We operate one of the world’s most advanced processing networks — VisaNet — that is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second, with fraud protection for consumers and assured payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank and does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa’s innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, pay ahead with prepaid or pay later with credit products. For more information, visit our website (www.visaeurope.com), the Visa Vision blog (vision.visaeurope.com), and @VisaEurope.

Contacts

European press office

Press contact 0207 795 5336

About Visa Europe

Visa Europe is a payments technology business owned and operated by member banks and other payment service providers from 38 countries.

Visa Europe is at the heart of the payments ecosystem providing the services and infrastructure to enable millions of European consumers, businesses and governments to make electronic payments. Its members are responsible for issuing cards, signing up retailers and deciding cardholder and retailer fees. Visa Europe is also the largest transaction processor in Europe, responsible for processing more than 18 billion transactions annually.

There are more than 500m Visa cards in Europe, while €1 in every €6 spent in Europe is on a Visa card. Total expenditure on Visa cards exceeds €2 trillion annually, with €1.5 trillion spent at point-of-sale.

Visa Europe is an independent business with an exclusive, irrevocable and perpetual licence to use the Visa brand in Europe. Visa Europe works in partnership with Visa Inc. to enable global Visa payments in more than 200 countries and territories.

For more information, visit www.visaeurope.com and @VisaEuropeNews

Visa UK
Visa UK