There's a chance that soon you'll be able to use Samsung Pay in the U.S., whether or not you have an S6 or a Note 5. Reuters reports that the mobile payment service will most likely become available for lower-priced Samsung phones within the next year. Samsung's global co-general manager Thomas Ko told the news agency that support for paying online will be "coming soon." And that means that the service could step in the arena as a competitor with PayPal and others.
Samsung Pay launched in the U.S. on September 2015, and unlike the NFC-dependent Apple Pay and Android Pay, it uses "Magnetic Source Transmission" technology to process payments. This is the same kind of magnetic code that credit card readers are compatible with already, which gives Samsung a significant advantage over their rivals' reliance on protocols that aren't as widely supported by retail chains.
For now, there's uncertainty around whether or not Samsung Pay will expand to accept payments online outside the U.S. But the general consensus online is that Samsung moving online is a good idea, and given the popularity of other services such as PayPal, it makes sense. But we'll have to wait to see what actually happens.
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