Samsung Pay expands to Mexico

Samsung Pay is expanding its reach yet again. Samsung has just announced that its digital payment service, which works on a number of Samsung smartphones and smartwatches, is now available in Mexico. This is the 20th country that has made Samsung Pay available to consumers.

The mobile payment service is now available at a number of Mexican banks, including Banorte, Banregio, Citibanamex, HSBC, and Santander for use with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. Other banking and online payment tools, such as Clip and iZettle, also support Samsung Pay in Mexico.

Samsung Pay first launched in August of 2015 in South Korea, later making its way to the U.S. in September 2015. The service currently only works on Samsung smartphones and smartwatches, although there have been rumors in the past that it might expand to non-Samsung smartphones at some point.

The technology behind Samsung Pay not only supports NFC-based transactions, similar to its competitors Android Pay and Apple Pay, but also the company’s own Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) technology. This allows Samsung Pay to simulate having a phone work like a traditional magnetic strip found on standard credit and debit cards, which means it can work on nearly all card terminals found in retail stores.