Samsung Pay might come to Galaxy J phones in India

Samsung Pay might come to Galaxy J phones in India

Samsung is looking to boost adoption of Samsung Pay by making it available on Galaxy J handsets.

Samsung Pay made its debut in India earlier this week, with the service becoming available for early access in the country. The digital payments service is limited to Samsung's premium devices, including the Galaxy S7, S7 edge, Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6 edge+, Galaxy A7 (2016), and the Galaxy A5 (2016), and it now looks like Samsung may expand availability to its Galaxy J phones.

That's according to unnamed sources talking to Mashable India. Samsung is said to roll out the feature to the Galaxy J phones in the country in the coming months, and if the company sees a lot of interest from consumers, it will bring the payments service to Galaxy J phones globally.

The move certainly makes sense for Samsung considering the Galaxy J series is its best-selling lineup in India. While devices like the Galaxy J7 Prime offer a fingerprint scanner, those that don't have it — like the Galaxy J2 — will rely on a PIN-based authentication system for purchases.

The country's demonetisation move led to an exponential increase in mobile wallets and digital payments services, and Samsung's decision to bring Samsung Pay in India comes at an apropos time. Currently, Samsung Pay works with Visa and MasterCard cards from Axis Bank, HDFC, ICICI, Standard Chartered, and SBI, and Samsung is set to add support for American Express and Citibank shortly. Most PoS machines in the country lack NFC-based authentication, but Samsung's payments service also works with the older MST, making it compatible with existing hardware.