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Samsung acquires LoopPay, main Apple Pay competitor
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MacNN Staff
Join Date: Jul 2012
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Samsung Electronics today confirmed that it has agreed to acquire LoopPay, the mobile wallet solutions provider that turns existing magnetic stripe readers into contactless receivers. LoopPay's technology has the potential to work in approximately 90 percent of existing point-of-sale (POS) terminals, according to Samsung research, with no investment in new infrastructure required by merchants.
LoopPay's digital wallet can store and use a wide variety of mag-stripe cards, including debit and credit cards, private label cards, gift cards loyalty cards, and rewards cards. Access to the LoopPay app and data is password and PIN-protected. LoopPay encrypts and stores all card-track data in secure memory within any LoopPay device, but does collect data on customer habits, purchases and financial information -- unlike rival Apple Pay -- and passes that data onto marketers, merchants, and others.
LoopPay will join Samsung to strengthen the company's overall efforts to provide users with a mobile wallet solution. As part of the acquisition, LoopPay founders and veteran payment industry entrepreneurs Will Graylin and George Wallner will work closely with Samsung's Mobile division. As it stands, the technology is usable on the iPhone with special cases, but it is not known if Samsung will continue offering these cases.
Samsung has an existing relationship with LoopPay, having first identified the potential for the pioneering technology when it became a strategic investor, along with Visa and Synchrony Financial. The investment, which was facilitated by Samsung's Global Innovation Center, helped fuel LoopPay's MST technology development.
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Last edited by NewsPoster; Feb 23, 2015 at 06:07 AM.
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Clinically Insane
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I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
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Senior User
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I wonder if this would affect CurrentC more than Apple.
The whole problem with LoopPay is it doesn't appear to be very secure if you lose the little dongle-like device that is a separate peice from the phone. It is programmed to have a default credit card prechosen and depending on how lazy you are, could be used if lost or stolen, because it can be made active for a long time away from the phone. Go figure.
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OK, I misspelled piece. That's what happens when you turn the spell checker off.
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Senior User
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I agree with jdonahoe...the spelling is atrocious!!
No, really...the point about the security of having a separated component storing this data and the ability to have it functional even without the master phone is a big time security issue. I can only speculate that Samsung will attempt to build this into their chosen future devices to alleviate this problem. Otherwise, I wouldn't begin to entertain this as a purchasing option.
On a side note, I love the marketing phrase on their web site, "Voted #1 in America" #1 what?..."mobile wallet"?..."solution not named Apple Pay or Google Wallet"?
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