Samsung Pay adds 14 US banks as partners, supports gift cards

In a move to expand further and cover a much bigger audience, Samsung announces that its mobile payment solutions; Samsung Pay will be having 14 more bank partners and also will also support gift cards. The expansion was announced a week after Samsung finally gained support from Verizon.

The 14 banks that signed with Samsung which will all support Samsung Pay in the coming months are PNC Bank, Chase, SunTrust, TD Bank, First Hawaiian, Key Bank, Fifth Third Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, Associated Bank, Randolph Brooks Federal Credit Union, Security Service Federal Credit Union, Virginia Credit Union and People's United Bank.

Aside from gaining support from 14 additional banks, Samsung also announced that users will find themselves delighted that gift cards will soon be added to their Samsung phones. This decision is due, in part, to a newly acquired partnership with Blackhawk Network.

Blackhawk Network is known to operate gift cards for a lot of companies including Macy's, Home Depot, Amazon, and Apple. This will enable a user to simply load their gift cards into their smartphones and redeem it in-store at participating outlets. Samsung Pay is also expected to support Discover cards starting next year.

Samsung Pay was first launched in the US last September. It supports both NFC payments and Samsung's MST or Magnetic Secure Transmission protocol; this makes it used more by merchants than its competitors Apple Pay and Android Pay. At first, Samsung Pay started with being able to work with credit or debit cards from American Express, Bank of America, Citi, and US Bank.

So far, Samsung Pay is currently available to users of Samsung Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, and Galaxy Note 5 on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular and the latest Verizon. The latest move of Samsung Pay is an effort to gain more and beat its competitors Apple Pay and Android Pay.