It is not only in the USA that the Galaxy S21 does not receive MST for Samsung Pay

It was revealed earlier this week that the Galaxy S21 series does not have the Samsung Pay’s Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) functionality in the U.S. However, it appears that the MST may be missing from the Galaxy S21 in more markets than we initially thought.

We can now confirm that the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21 + and Galaxy S21 Ultra also do not have MST in India, which means that you will not be able to make contactless mobile payments in locations that do not have NFC machines. Samsung’s new high-end smartphones may not have the MST for Samsung Pay in more markets. However, it is not easy to find out exactly which markets still have access to the MST with the Galaxy S21 series and which do not, because Samsung did not mention it on the official spec sheet on all its localized sites.

The MST emulates the magnetic stripe signal from credit and debit cards on PoS (Point of Sale) machines, allowing mobile payments where NFC is not available. NFC payments are not yet prevalent in several markets, including India, making Samsung Pay’s MST feature a winner. However, Samsung now tends to think that NFC has matured enough to be able to remove MST from its smartphones. The South Korean company had already stopped equipping its smartwatches with MST.

Samsung US has indicated that its future phones may not have the MST feature. Samsung acquired LoopPay in February 2015 for about $ 250 million for the MST feature. Who knew, five years later, the acquisition would have been in vain.