Possible Replacements for Your Wallet
Possible Replacements for Your Wallet
  • Reporter Yun Seok-chan
  • 승인 2015.10.07 20:12
  • 댓글 0
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   Financial technology, also known as FinTech, is a financial service based on the Internet. It covers services such as payments, lending, personal finance, and crowd funding. FinTech rose rapidly in 2014 and now there are hundreds of service providers for FinTech. The most common form of FinTech available and known these days is mobile payments. Recently, as people have started using cash less but cards more, the development of mobile payment systems has become very competitive among various companies. In this article, I will compare and contrast three different mobile payments: Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Kakao Pay. The common denominator for all three services is that they all work by registering the information of cards on the application. However, except for that, they differ in a wide array of aspects including the technology they adopt, the number of accepted locations, and the devices on which they are supported.
   Apple Pay, as the name implies, was developed by Apple. Thus, it is compatible with Apple devices. All Apple devices are eligible for Apple Pay, but only iPhone 6, 6 plus, 6s, 6s plus, and Apple Watch support offline payment. Apple Pay uses NFC, which stands for Near Field Communication. Near field communication is a technology that allows electronics to communicate via radio frequency. A device works as one part of a wireless link and the other device is used to activate it. The way to use Apple Pay is quite simple. Tapping the device on the NFC will ask the user to scan his or her fingerprint on the device. Once the user is authenticated, everything is done. The limitation for Apple Pay is that the store needs a NFC reader designated for Apple Pay. Also, unfortunately, Apple Pay is currently only available in the United States and the United Kingdom.
   Samsung Pay, as expected from its name, was developed by Samsung. Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, Galaxy Note 5, and Galaxy Edge Plus support Samsung Pay. Samsung Pay utilizes a technology called MST, which is an abbreviation for Magnetic Safe Transmission, along with NFC. Basically, the device makes a magnetic field that is equivalent to the one that forms when we slash our credit or debit cards through card readers. The biggest strength Samsung Pay has over others is that, thanks to MST, it is compatible in virtually every single retail shop that accepts plastic cards. Opening Samsung Pay app, tapping the device on a card reader, and scanning fingerprint to authenticate the user is all that is required to purchase an item with Samsung Pay. Samsung Pay is currently available in South Korea, and will be launched in the States sooner or later. Some good news for Postechians is that Samsung Pay can be used in Woori Bank ATMs just like a bank note.
   Kakao Pay was developed by Daum Kakao Corporation. It is so far the most popular mobile payment in South Korea, with about 4 million users, owing to Kakao group’s dominant market share in Korea’s social network services. This type of mobile payment differs from others in that it only supports online payments. Still, since it does not depend on special hardware, it can be used in any device running iOS and Android. Kakao Pay is planning to implement offline payment as well.