Late-comer Samsung Pay goes live in Hong Kong

Several major banks in Hong Kong, including Citi and DBS, are set to offer incentives to encourage customers to pay for items using credit cards via Samsung smartphones, as the company officially launched its Samsung Pay service on Thursday.

The incentives – ranging from discounted food, drink and toiletries to free mobile phones – is seen as necessary, given the South Korean company is a relative late comer to Hong Kong’s highly competitive mobile payments market.

Apply Pay, for instance, launched its mobile payments service in July last year, while Google launched Android Pay in October.

Mobile payment services allow customers to store their credit card information on their smartphones and make payments at stores using their device.

Several of the mainland’s technology giants, including Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group Holding’s financial arm Ant Financial Services Group, have also launched WeChat Wallet and Alipay, respectively, in the city.

The services allow users to link their bank or credit cards to an app, and make payments by having the cashiers scan a QR code, generated by their mobile.