As much fun as it is to talk about the bottom of the Galaxy S6 edge and what Samsung sacrificed in order to gain its beautiful new design language, it was recently pointed out in the forums that very little time has been spent on one new feature in particular. With Google announcing new plans for the freshly named Android Pay and Apple Pay now out in the world, Samsung purchasing a small mobile payment company and embedding their technology into the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge may not seem like a big deal. Where things get interesting is how Samsung is planning to use its new tech, and the surprising number of places that will support Samsung Pay without even being aware of it.

Samsung Pay exists in its current form thanks to a company called LoopPay, which was acquired by Samsung back in February. Rather than try to work out a complicated partnership deal for wireless payment systems, LoopPay relied on a technology called Magnetic Secure Transmission (lets just call it MST from now on). This tech allows users to pay using almost any magnetic stripe payment gateway, which as you know sits on the countertop of just about every retail establishment in the US. MST broadcasts data magnetically, making it so you can send your payment credentials just by tapping your phone to the side of the terminal you would normally swipe your card in, and no additional tech is required from the vendor. As far as the register behind the counter is concerned, you just swiped your card. It's not hard to see where LoopPay had adoption problems if you take a look at what they were trying to accomplish before being bought by Samsung. The company was trying to sell iPhone cases that handled the magnetic broadcast, and the cases weren't particularly attractive. Now that the technology is embedded in the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge, all users will need to do is fire up the app and tap it to the side of the card terminal. Like Google Wallet, users will be able to store multiple cards in the app and switch back and forth with a tap. Unlike Google Wallet, this service will work just about anywhere magnetic strip readers are used (which, in the U.S, is basically everywhere).