Samsung Electronics turns to Gemalto to speed rollout of Samsung Pay in Europe

Gemalto teamed with Samsung to speed the rollout of Samsung Pay, the South Korean company's mobile payment service, in Europe.

The France-headquartered digital security specialist announced the companies are currently working with payment issuers in the region to accelerate deployments of Samsung Pay, which Gemalto said uses NFC and Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) technologies found in many merchant locations.

Gemalto said it is using its Allynis Trusted Service Hub (TSH) to achieve fast deployment of Samsung Pay. In a statement, the company explained the hub enables payment issuers to speed the rollout of mobile payment services by "integrating streamlined user enrolment, service installation and lifecycle management of payment credentials or tokenisation services."

The company added that Allynis TSH makes it easier for payment issuers to acquire the knowledge needed to run mobile payment services without having to fork out large sums on new IT. The hub also works across a wide range of handset security models, it said.

Injong Rhee, EVP of Samsung Electronics and its global head of B2B Solutions, said Gemalto's hub will ensure that "Samsung Pay will be able to deliver a simple, secure and everywhere mobile payment experience to more consumers."

Gemalto's hub also provides Samsung Electronics with a "secure payment card digitisation solution" for Samsung Pay that works globally, Rhee added.

Teck-Lee Tan, EVP of Platforms and Services at Gemalto, said payment issuers and their customers place a high value on the company's "track record of serving banks and handling sensitive data, as well as our understanding of security management on mobile handsets".

Samsung launched its mobile payment service in its home market last month, and plans to extend availability to the U.S. and Europe later this month.

However, convincing payment issuers is just part of the battle facing Samsung Pay.

Consumers are proving a harder sell: reports in August revealed that user uptake of rival service Apple Pay fell between March and June, while Ovum analysts were bearish on the potential of Google's Android Pay to stimulate the overall mobile payments market when it was announced in May.

For more:
- see this Gemalto announcement

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