Verizon announces Samsung Pay software update for current devices incoming

Samsung has launched Samsung Pay officially in the United States, with T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T all giving their support to it. Verizon was the only major carrier that was not listed among the carriers as officially supporting Samsung Pay, but that streak ended earlier this week when the Big Red carrier announced its support for Samsung Pay at Twitter:

Samsung Pay will be supported on compatible Verizon smartphones (Galaxy S 6, S 6 edge, Note5, S6 edge+) through a future software update.

Samsung Pay is Samsung’s own answer to mobile payments, the current new trend in tech that has consumers paying for purchases with their smartphones. Whereas Apple Pay, Apple’s mobile payments system, mandates that card reading machines have NFC or be replaced with NFC-compatible ones, Samsung Pay allows merchants to use the mobile payments system at even traditional card readers with no need to replace current card-reading machines. This ensures not only that merchants will welcome mobile payments, but that users will be able to make use of the new system in virtually every store. At least 90% of all retail stores and even convenient stores are Samsung Pay-compatible.

Verizon hasn’t provided any additional details regarding the future software update, including when Verizon customers can expect it, but we have an idea that it won’t be long. Notice that the only Samsung devices that will get Samsung Pay compatibility are Samsung’s current 2015 smartphones: Galaxy S6, S6 edge, Note5, and the S6 edge+. Older devices such as the Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy S5 (both 2014 devices) and earlier (the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3, for example), aren’t yet rumored to receive Samsung Pay via a future update. Both the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 are 2013 devices and both could receive Samsung Pay with a potential update to Android 6.0 Marshmallow – although no one knows for sure whether or not Samsung will choose to update these two-year-old devices.

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