Samsung Pay goes live in Australia with Amex, Citibank

American Express and Citibank customers will be able to make mobile payments on their Samsung smartphones from today as Samsung Pay goes live in Australia.

Australia becomes the fourth country to introduce Samsung Pay behind the US, China, Spain and South Korea. The mobile payments platform will go live in Singapore tomorrow, and the company claims the technology has surpassed 5 million registered users.

The contactless payments service is available on the Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+, Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge running Android Marshmallow.

Citibank credit card customers and American Express card members can use the service from today. Up to 10 payment cards can be registered in Samsung Pay.

The platform uses near-field communications (NFC) to interact with payment terminals equipped with NFC readers.

It can also be used with older, standard card readers through Samsung's proprietary magnetic secure transmission (MST) technology, which emulates a traditional card magnetic stripe.

Samsung's Galaxy S6 and S6 edge devices don't support the MST feature.

Transactions are authenticated via fingerprint scanning. An encrypted token replaces a user's payment data, while Samsung's Knox enterprise security technology scans the device to protect the payment information.

The platform is based on technology developed by LoopPay, which Samsung took over last February. 

It joins Apple Pay, which arrived in Australia last November thanks to a partnership with American Express and became available for ANZ Bank customers in April, and Android Pay, which announced bank partnerships last year and is expected to launch imminently.