Samsung Pay should really eliminate international cross-border travel barriers as one of the few GlobalPlatform-compliant eSE-based OEM Pay platforms. Especially when it comes to adding transit cards from other regions that does NOT use an ISO/IEC 14443 NFC technology but uses other NFC technologies such as JIS X 6319-4 compliant FeliCa (e.g. Jelajah, Rapid Pass, Suica, PASMO, ICOCA, nanaco, Edy, WAON, etc.) for any purpose.
For FeliCa, Samsung should negotiate with FeliCa Networks to expand Mobile FeliCa technologies and services support, especially for developers, and transit ticketing and smart card system administrators accessing Mobile FeliCa developer resources and creating Mobile FeliCa Samsung Pay cards. Expanding Mobile FeliCa support can make it easier for system administrators to choose an NFC technology appropriate for their application. EMV, MIFARE, and other ISO/IEC 14443 are not the silver bullets for every system despite ISO/IEC 14443 technologies being the majority.
On cross-border and international support, Samsung should somehow create a universal Samsung Pay app exclusively for Samsung devices with full native integrated global Mobile FeliCa (and other NFC technologies regardless of protocol) support and ability to add any foreign card of any kind (i.e. financial institution, transit, E-money, etc.) similar to Apple Pay exclusively for iOS and watchOS devices with global support for any card and technology including EMV, MIFARE, Calypso, FeliCa, etc. A Japan-based blogger posted "Global FeliCa iPhone and Why It’s Important – Ata Distance" and explains how universal automatic NFC switching is important for an all-digital wallet experience because people travel abroad yet don't want to deal with major technology incompatibility issues. At the same time, card operators and merchants don't want to deal with installing new tech just for serving tourists if Samsung Pay can easily adapt to local systems for any reason such as ISO/IEC 14443 compliant EMV Contactless being too slow for certain transit systems, transaction service processing fees are not desirable with payment cards (i.e. Mastercard, Visa, etc.) for merchants, etc. E.g. a tourist from Canada visits Taiwan and takes various forms of transportation. Taxis, transit, vending machines, and a handful of parking facilities accepts local E-money transit cards such as the MIFARE Classic based EasyCard which Samsung Pay supports in Taiwan (https://www.easycard.com.tw/en/mobilecard?id=1583737566). Taxis, few transit systems, some parking facilities, and a handful of vending machines accept Contactless financial institution payment cards.
Thank you! I hope Samsung do something about Samsung Pay for cross-border travel. Payment cards alone, even with MST and EMV Contactless NFC, are not sufficient. Local regional E-money (e.g. icash, WAON, Edy, nanaco, etc.) and transit (e.g. EasyCard, iPASS, Suica, PASMO, etc.) cards are also important for not only locals but also tourists. Especially when some transit passes are only offered on local transit card systems such as All Pass Tickets on EasyCard (including Samsung Pay digital EasyCard version) as according to the mentioned example.
Furthermore, while iOS has given inbound tourists easier usage of various local transit and E-money card systems regardless of NFC protocol and device region via Apple Pay, Samsung Pay needs to offer a Samsung equivalent so Samsung users worldwide, including Canadians, can simply pay anywhere regardless of Contactless method (MST, NFC, 1D/2D code, etc.) and protocol (EMV, FeliCa, MIFARE, Calypso, CEPAS, qSPARC, etc.). Google Pay currently doesn't satisfy Contactless methods nor protocols (only ISO/IEC 14443 for NFC, JIS X 6319-4 NFC is still exclusive to Osaifu Keitai compatible devices in Japan).
I agree with implementing support for NFC Felica alongside the regular variation of NFC used for mobile payments in North America to support all international transit tap cards, including Octopus in Hong Kong and Suica in Japan. Currently, only Samsung phones sold in Japan support all versions of NFC, including NFC-Felica required for Suica, Pasmo and other NFC-Felica enabled transit tap cards, out of the box. This is a missed opportunity for Samsung. If Apple did it, there's no reason why it doesn't follow and enable NFC-Felica on all their phones sold around the world. This would be a big selling point for anyone looking for a new Android smartphone. I'd also like to Samsung re-develop Samsung Pay / Wallet so that everyone, regardless of where they are in the world, has the ability to see and add any publicly available transit card to the app, even if it's not from their home region.
This is where Apple Pay shines. For example, anyone, anywhere, can add a Suica or Pasmo card to Apple Pay with just a few taps, and this is huge because if you're preparing to travel to Japan, you already have the transit card on your phone all set and ready to go for when you arrive in Japan.
