The title says it all: without MST support, there is simply no reason to use Samsung Pay. In the past year, Samsung has effectively stripped Samsung Pay of its most attractive features, but the saving grace was MST – the technology that allowed Samsung phones to mimic a magnetic credit card strip, making them compatible with older payment terminals. But Samsung’s latest smartphones, the Galaxy S21 series, debuted without MST this year – and all that’s left of Samsung Pay is a bloated, ad-tainted app that doesn’t compare well to Google Pay.
Longtime Samsung Pay users will remember that Samsung once offered quite a respectable rewards program as part of the payment platform. Every time you made a purchase with Samsung Pay, Samsung gave you reward points that you can spend on various gift cards, raffles or even the purchase products and special discounts. But at the end of last year, Samsung removed the ability to earn reward points through Samsung Pay. Now you can only get these points from Samsung purchases or referrals, ending one of the few financial benefits for Samsung Pay. Now that MST is gone, that’s one of the few practical benefits too.
Samsung Pay does have a number of features that are still interesting, such as Samsung Money: a Samsung SoFi bank account and debit card. This can come in handy for Samsung owners who want easy access to a bank account straight from the Pay app, but it’s certainly not a very competitive online banking offering in the wider world of such things. Samsung does offer an “employee discount” to anyone who uses Samsung Money to buy Samsung products, but it’s the same discount you can get as a student (5%), which Samsung notably doesn’t need to verify to claim.
Samsung Pay also has a cash back program, but I found it unreliable. There have been several instances where I made an eligible purchase but Samsung Pay has not given me a discount. Plus, Samsung Pay’s online payment platform is simply not supported or basically not used at all, at least here in the US. I have not yet found a website that supports Samsung Pay, and this also applies to Samsung Pay personal payments. I have only used Samsung Pay once as a way to send or receive money because essentially no one else is using it.
I could put up with Samsung Pay’s lost features, ads, and general unreliability as being able to use it anywhere, more than made up for it. Many small businesses in my area are still using outdated payment systems that don’t support NFC, and I was able to use MST instead, which was super handy. But now that I’ve switched to the Galaxy S21, that dream of a fully digital wallet has not only disappeared, the memory is also tainted by the substandard app and experience that Samsung has let customers deal with.
And what will it replace? Unsurprisingly to me, it’s the new Google Pay, which has the same cash back features, NFC payments, in-person payments, and soon a debit card and bank account with a Google Plex account. With Google Pay, you can even link credit cards and bank accounts to view balances and upcoming bills. All this with a better UI, no ads, and a better tap-to-pay experience (Google Pay doesn’t require interaction to activate). In addition, there is web and app support for Google Pay, with direct integration into many apps and websites. You can even order food, pay for gas or park in the app itself. It’s just a more useful, widely accepted platform.
Without MST, Samsung Pay is really just a more bloated, less useful and, frankly, outdated Google Pay. I say this as someone who was a strong believer in Samsung Pay, and even started using only Samsung phones for everyday use for a few years. I could overlook its many flaws as long as MST support persisted. But without? Samsung Pay makes about as much sense as Google Hangouts in 2021.