Amex Drops Support For Samsung Pay In India

American Express (Amex) is ditching support for Samsung Pay in India, which was launched in 2017 to back credit and debit cards from financial institutions (FIs).

Amex is one of several banks that folded Samsung Pay into its system, but has now decided to exit from that backing in India. Samsung Pay will not be available to Amex customers starting Oct. 1, according to a Samsung press release on Monday (Aug. 30).

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Samsung started eliminating Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) on its smartphones as NFC support expanded across India and worldwide. Samsung’s Galaxy S21 doesn’t support MST in the U.S. or other countries. In the future, the tech company said its smartphones won’t have MST support at all.

NFC-based payments have been adopted across India and worldwide, and Samsung has followed suit with the removal of MST support. Mobile payments have escalated across India, fueled by the pandemic as well as demonetization.

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PYMNTS research earlier this month, done in conjunction with American Express, found that 57 percent of respondents decided where to shop based on the ability to pay with a mix of options. Some 69 percent of those who responded to the survey and now use digital wallets indicated that they would shop more often since having that ability.

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