It is confirmed that Samsung Pay cannot be used at any self gas stations in South Korea. Due to its strong security standard that Samsung Pay boasts about, there is a difficult situation where it cannot be used at gas stations, and card and security companies are preparing a solution for it.
According to industry, it is confirmed that payment using Samsung Pay, which uses one-time security token method, cannot be used at self gas stations due to their characteristics of approving actual payment after approving preliminary payment.
If one were to use his or her credit card at a self gas station, he or she needs to go through ‘preliminary approval (getting approved beforehand)’ step that usually costs about $128 (150,000 KRW). Approval of actual transaction using actual amount to fill in gas takes place after he or she is done filling in gas, and payment of preliminary approval of $128 is cancelled. It is a method where a card company approves the amount beforehand when a card is swiped, then approves actual amount and cancels preliminary approval after actual transaction takes places.
Problem occurs because preliminary approval and approval of actual transaction are not possible for Samsung Pay as its strong token security method forms one-time password 198 once every minute. If Samsung Pay were to be used, he or she needs to complete a transaction within a minute and he or she needs to make another payment by receiving a new one-time number if a minute is passed. If he or she uses a credit card many times within many minutes at a same place, an error occurs with a payment.
“It is confirmed that Samsung Pay’s security token method cannot be linked to self gas stations’ transaction method. As there is also a problem when a partnered card business’s saving service cannot be used, we are preparing measures to solve these problems.” said a card company that works with Samsung Pay.
There is also a problem with recognizing payment terminals. Because most gas stations deal with flammable substances, they use payment terminals that have functions that can protect against electromagnetic wave to prevent any fire accidents that can occur due to electromagnetic waves. Because Samsung Pay’s magnetic security transmission (MST416) method sends information to payment terminals by creating magnetic field, there are problems about recognition as electromagnetic wave is blocked off.
“There is a high chance that there will be many errors about recognition as many gas stations have payment terminals that have explosion proof apparatus. We cannot really do anything else about it due to safety reasons.” said one owner of a self gas station.
Although Samsung Pay has an advantage of being versatile as it can be used at about 2 million affiliated stores in South Korea, it cannot be used at self gas stations and others due to this problem. To solve this problem, Samsung Electronics and participating companies of Samsung Pay are considering about totally changing ‘token method’ that is applied in Samsung Pay.
“We are considering a plan about using fixed token method within OTP method that creates one-time password. If this happens, one will be able to use Samsung Pay at self gas stations because fixed numbers can be saved and stores within EXE file.” said a person that is affiliated with participating company.
Staff Reporter Gil, Jaeshik | osolgil@etnews.com