Samsung Pay adds Visa to overseas payment service

South Korea's mobile payment and digital wallet service Samsung Pay will allow its Visa-affiliated credit cards issued in the country to make overseas payments, a feature that had been the exclusive domain of the service's Mastercard-branded cards.

From Thursday, Samsung Pay also began its online and offline payment link with Naver Pay in a bid to expand service availability with the recent launch of Apple Pay in the country.

Industry sources on Wednesday said Samsung Electronics from Monday will add overseas payment service for Visa cards to Samsung Pay. A Samsung Card user can register Visa-affiliated cards usable abroad with the service and make payments overseas simply by holding a smartphone to a terminal.

Because Visa and Mastercard's coverage spans over 90% of global card payments, most overseas stores are expected to accept Samsung Pay.

At this time, among domestic credit cards, only Visa-branded Samsung Cards can use Samsung Pay abroad. The four domestic card companies that support Samsung Pay overseas are Samsung, Woori, Lotte and NH Nonghyup, so the remaining three in order will soon start Visa payment abroad.

"We plan to further expand the range of credit card companies that support Samsung Pay's overseas payments," a Samsung Electronics Co.'s source said.

Samsung Pay's expansion is seen as its "defensive war" in response to Apple Pay's launch in the country to further boost competitiveness by raising the service's availability worldwide. Industry sources say Apple Pay could cause cracks on the domestic market for simple offline payments dominated by Samsung Pay as well as the smartphone market.

Hyundai Card Vice Chairman Chung Tae-young, whose company is a domestic partner of Apple Pay, also said over a million applications to register for Apple Pay were filed as of 10 p.m. on Tuesday, when the service was launched.

Samsung Pay has also started its simple payment link with Naver Pay. From Thursday, the former can be used at over 550,000 online merchants on Naver, the country's biggest web portal.

Samsung Pay is also discussing a service partnership with Kakao Pay.

Write to Nan-Sae Bin at binthere@hankyung.com