Samsung launches Samsung Pay together with Nordea in Sweden, looks to expand in Europe.

Samsung announced launching its service, Samsung Pay, in Sweden in a partnership with Nordea. The service is a payment option that can be used to make in-store payments via mobile phones

The service, which is still in beta, is available to all Nordea Swedish customers that have an active private credit or debit card and a compatible Samsung phone.

Sweden is the second country in Europe after Spain where Samsung launches its service. One of the reasons is that Sweden is mostly a cashless society, with only two percent of all transactions made with cash.

Samsung Pay was fully launched in 11 markets as of February, 2017; South Korea, the U.S., China, Spain, Singapore, Australia, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Russia, Thailand and Malaysia.

Samsung Pay is based on the currently widespread NFC technology (Near Field Communication), and the Samsung's specially developed solution Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST). Locally, the NFC penetration is only about 10 percent of the Swedish market, while nearly all the existing terminals are already compatible with the MST technology.

Samsung Pay syncs with virtually all new and existing payment terminals in Sweden, and the merchant does not need to upgrade or modify their existing payment terminals in Sweden to accept Samsung Pay.

In Sweden, Samsung Pay will compete with established companies such as Klarna, Swish or iZettle and with startups like Bambora or Trustly.