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Samsung acquires Apple Pay competitor LoopPay
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has acquired mobile wallet solutions provider LoopPay Inc. for an undisclosed price.
Founded in 2013, LoopPay offers a mobile payments solution that turns existing magnetic stripe readers into secure, contactless receivers, and works with approximately 90 percent of existing point-of-sale (POS) terminals in the United States.
The tech works by way of a mobile phone case that creates a magnetic field that replicates the data on the magnetic strip of standard cards, negating the need to have a physical card.
By comparison, rival Apple Pay requires terminals that support near field communications (NFC), a common technology in Europe and Australia, but with a much smaller merchant presence in the United States.
LoopPay has 10 million merchants using its platform and allows you to add existing credit cards without making any changes.
As part of the acquisition LoopPay’s founders will work closely with Samsung’s Mobile Division, presumably looking at ways of building their technology into Samsung’s range of mobile devices.
“This acquisition accelerates our vision to drive and lead innovation in the world of mobile commerce. Our goal has always been to build the smartest, most secure, user-friendly mobile wallet experience, and we are delighted to welcome LoopPay to take us closer to this goal,” President and Head of IT and Mobile Division at Samsung Electronics JK Shin said in a statement.
Rumors first surfaced in December 2014 that Samsung was working on an Apple Pay competitor that will debut with the Galaxy S6 with LoopPay named as the likely partner.
The acquisition is a win for Samsung. Not only does it now have the technology to take on Apple in mobile payments, it has a company that already has customers and partners; no need for Samsung to start from scratch in a battle towards winning mobile payments dominance.
Based in Woburn, MA, LoopPay had raised $13 million prior to acquisition from investors including Visa Inc., Synchrony Financial and Samsung itself.
Image credit: LoopPay
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