A rumor from mid-December 2014 suggested that Samsung was interested in acquiring a company called LoopPay to help create a new mobile payment service. Now the two companies have come forward to announce that a deal has been struck.
Samsung will acquire LoopPay for an undisclosed sum. The deal will see LoopPay and its team join Samsung to help beef up the smartphone maker’s effort to give users “seamless, safe, and reliable mobile wallet solutions.” LoopPay’s founders will work with Samsung’s mobile team and both its tech and talent will be combined with Samsung’s mobile efforts and global presence.
LoopPay uses Magnetic Secure Transmission technology to let you pay using standard in-store payment terminals. You get a LoopPay device like an iPhone case or a key fob, set up LoopPay account, and then load all of your cards into your phone and the LoopPay app. When you’re ready to pay, you simply lay your LoopPay device against the credit card ready that you’d normally use to swipe your card.
Since it uses standard credit card terminals, LoopPay touts that its product works with 90 perfect of existing payment terminals. That’s a lot more than Apple Pay and Google Wallet, which require an terminal with NFC support. Now that Samsung is acquiring LoopPay, it’ll be interesting to see how Samsung utilizes LoopPay’s tech into its Galaxy products and how it plans to fight Apple and Google with its own mobile payment offering.