Credit cards with Samsung Pay

Samsung Pay is an app that allows you to make tap-and-go payments from your Samsung phone or compatible device. It is supported by many Australian banks and credit card providers – including American Express, ANZ, Citi, CommBank, NAB and Westpac.

Use this guide to learn more about Samsung Pay, including how it works and current credit cards that are compatible with this mobile payment option.

How does Samsung Pay work?

First, we'll get the technical points out of the way. Samsung Pay uses NFC (Near Field Communication) and MST (Magnetic Secure Transaction) technology, which is embedded in Samsung devices. The bottom line: this tech allows you to make payments at the checkout.

Here's how it works: instead of tapping your credit card against the payment machine, you just swipe up on your smartphone screen, authenticate the transaction using your fingerprint, and tap your phone against the contactless terminal.

The phone must be within 3cm of the terminal to complete the payment. If your purchase is over $100, you can still use Samsung Pay, but you'll be required to type in your credit card's 4-digit PIN.

Which devices are compatible with Samsung Pay?

The app is available from the Samsung Galaxy S6 onwards, which all have the integrated NFC chip and a magnetic coil built into them. This includes the Galaxy S6, S6 Edge+, Note 5, Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge.

How to install Samsung Pay

1. On the Home screen, select Apps.
2. Touch Samsung Pay.
3. Select INSTALL to download the file.
4. If there are updates to the built-in application, touch INSTALL.
5. Touch OPEN to start using Samsung Pay.

How to add your card details to your Samsung Pay app

When you open the Samsung Pay app, you'll be asked to register your cards. You can register your card by scanning your physical card with Samsung Pay or manually inputting the card information. Then, depending on your bank's policies, Samsung Pay will prompt you to verify your identity through a text message or phone call. It can take up to 10 minutes for the registration to complete, but usually it takes just a minute or 2.

You can register up to 10 payment cards under 1 Samsung Pay account. Note that your bank may have separate terms and conditions regarding how many cards you can register with Samsung Pay, so make sure to confirm this directly if you want to register multiple cards.

Full list of Australian banks that support Samsung Pay

Is Samsung Pay safe to use?

Samsung Pay was designed to be just as safe, if not safer, than regular contactless card payments. Samsung Pay uses Tokenisation, a Secure Environment and Samsung KNOX to keep your payment information safe. What does this mean?

• Tokenisation. None of your personal bank information is stored on your Samsung device or the Samsung service. Instead, Samsung Pay uses Tokenisation to replace your sensitive payment information (such as the card number, expiration date, security code etc) with a device-specific token which acts as a stand-in value.
• Secure Environment. A Secure Environment, sometimes referred to as a Trusted Execution Environment, refers to the physically segregated chip in the card that only allows access to highly sensitive operations such as fingerprint and payment information. Normal applications can't access the information in a Secure Environment.
• Samsung KNOX. Samsung KNOX runs scans to determine whether or not your device is secure. Samsung KNOX can permanently disable Samsung Pay on a threatened device to protect your payment information.

In addition to these features, you can use Samsung's "Find My Mobile" service to remotely lock or wipe your device if it is lost or stolen. This ensures that no one else can use your Samsung phone for contactless payments. Please note that this means that you'll have to register your cards again if you get a new phone, as no data will be stored in the application.

If you're not with one of the banks listed but you're looking forward to using Samsung's contactless payment technology, keep checking this guide for the latest information on which banks join the Samsung Pay ranks. If you don't use a Samsung device, you can use our Google Pay and Apple Pay guides to compare your options.

Pictures: Shutterstock

Written by

Sally McMullen

Producer

Sally McMullen was a creative content producer at Finder. Sally wrote about credit cards for almost 5 years, authoring almost 900 articles on Finder alone. She has also been published in Yahoo Finance, Dynamic Business, Financy and Mamamia, as well as Music Feeds and Rolling Stone. Sally has a Bachelor of Communication and Media Studies majoring in Journalism (Hons) from the University of Wollongong. See full bio