Samsung has launched its own contactless mobile payments system, Samsung Pay, which will let you pay for goods using your smartphone. It's a direct competitor to Apple Pay, but Samsung Pay has been designed to be more flexible than its iOS rival.
Whereas Apple Pay uses NFC to talk to card terminals in store, Samsung Pay supports NFC and Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST). MST technology generates changing magnetic fields, replicating the magnetic strip on the back of a credit card. By swiping a compatible phone past the reading head of a card terminal, you'll be able to use Samsung Pay to complete the transaction.
This means that Samsung Pay can be used in many more stores than Apple Pay, although only in countries where cards are still routinely swiped, such as in the US. In the UK, chip-and-pin is far more common, and with Samsung Pay unable to replicate this method, it's likely that we'll only be able to use NFC in supported stores.
Samsung Pay will allow its users to store payment details in their phones, paying for transactions without having to reach for the physical card. For security, the fingerprint reader on the front of the handset will protect all transactions. No private card details are stored on the handset, with a secure token used to authenticate purchases instead.
Samsung Pay will launch with the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, with the service available in the US and South Korea in summer 2015. The plan is to roll it out to the rest of the world, including Europe and China, later, although no firm dates have been confirmed. This is similar to Apple Pay, which has not yet launched outside of the US, with a European launch most likely coming later this year.