Mastercard Inc. MA in partnership with Samsung Electronics and Samsung Card has launched Samsung Pay Card in South Korea. It is the company’s co-branded card that will enable customers to avail of enhanced digital payment facilities in the country.
Mastercard will get a ready customer base in South Korea by virtue of Samsung Pay’s leading market position in the East Asian nation with about 19 million users as of August 2020 and payments collected worth of 80 trillion ($67.5 billion) since the service started in August 2015.
Mobile wallets, such as Samsung Pay facilitates contactless payments as it enables money transfer by just tapping on phone (or watch) without any need to swipe physical credit or debit card. Other similar contactless payment options are Apple Pay from Apple Inc. AAPL and Google Pay from Alphabet Inc. GOOGL.
It is important to note that Mastercard had already started providing Samsung Pay services in South Korea since 2015 by utilizing its MasterCard Digital Enablement Service (MDES). Samsung’s mobile payment service is most popular in the country, proven by the fact that Samsung Pay surpassed $33.7 million worth transactions in April 2019.
The latest Samsung Pay Card allows foreign merchants to accept cards registered for overseas payments on the Samsung Pay app. The card can be used globally at all Mastercard merchants equipped with NFC readers. It offers a 5% discount on the payments made via the Samsung Pay app.
Mastercard’s expansion in the Korean market is driven by a strong uptake of digitalization embraced by the region’s economy, which will propel growth for contactless transactions, thereby providing an attractive business opportunity.
Last month, Mastercard co-branded Samsung Pay card was launched in the UK in partnership with the London-based fintech company Curve.
Another company in the same space, Visa Inc. V, also provides payment services via Samsung Pay, which is supported by its technology, Visa Token Service.
Year to date, the stock has rallied 12.2% compared with its industry’s growth of 4.4%.
Mastercard currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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