Synchrony Financial, U.S. Bank Become Early Samsung Pay Backers

Consumers holding credit cards issued by private-label card issuer Synchrony Financial and credit and debit cards issued by U.S. Bank will be able to use their cards with Samsung Pay, a mobile-payment service available this summer.

Samsung Electronics Co. announced Samsung Pay Sunday. It can use either near-field communication (NFC) or a magnetic-stripe field to conduct contactless payments at the point of sale, both of which will be enabled this summer on the Samsung Galaxy S6 smart phone, which will be released in April.

Samsung Pay will use the magnetic-stripe technology, which it calls Magnetic Secure Transmission, if a merchant has not enabled a contactless terminal, says Jim McCarthy, executive president for innovation and strategic partnerships at Visa Inc. “In both cases, the transaction is completed from the mobile phone– securely–thanks to Visa’s Token Service,” McCarthy tells Digital Transactions News via email. Both Visa and MasterCard Inc. are enabling their tokenization services with the mobile-payment service.

Among the early adopters of the service is U.S. Bank, a unit of Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp. U.S. Bank cards also can be used with Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay, an NFC mobile-payment service.

“We're thrilled to have payments become a core capability of the mobile phone,” says Pamela Joseph, vice chairman and head of U.S. Bank Payment Services, in a press release. “The result of mobile payments is that our customers can use the same, familiar credit card payment system but with added security and convenience.”

Synchrony Financial, formerly GE Capital Retail Finance, says all 11.4 million active accounts that are part of its Synchrony Bank Payment Solutions and CareCredit card portfolios can be set up for use with Samsung Pay. “All Synchrony Bank private-label credit card accounts in Samsung Pay will be device-specific and domain-restricted tokens, meaning they will only work in the merchant’s store, providing additional security,” the company says in a press release.

Synchrony says it wants its cards to work with all third-party digital wallets.