Not long after the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, it has been confirmed that rooting the devices in order to perform further customization and development will result in the breaking of the yet-to-be-launched Samsung Pay mobile payments functionality, which is being sold as a key feature of the S6.
Samsung Pay and the KNOX data security features require the device to be unrooted in order for their respective features to work as intended. By rooting the devices in order to perform further customization and development, the security integrity of both programs is compromised and are rendered useless.
Samsung Pay works through the February acquisition of Loop Pay and its magnetic stripe transfer technology. The technology allows the phone to be used in standard swipe-only card readers by touching the phone to the reader, which the reader interprets as a full card swipe.
This is said to be more compatible for current merchants than Apple Pay and Google Wallet, since those require the availability of more expensive NFC-compatible card readers and it’s estimated that only 300,000 storefronts are equipped to support NFC-based payments in the US.
Samsung Pay is set to launch later this Summer and counts MasterCard, VISA, American Express, Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and U.S. Bank as its initial partners in the program with further expansion in the future.
