PayPal and Samsung Enabling Biometric Payments with Galaxy S5

February 28, 2024         By: Kevin Xu

PayPal and Samsung are partnering up to push secure mobile payments to the forefront with the Galaxy S5.

Samsung revealed its flagship Android smartphone, the Galaxy S5 during Monday’s Mobile World Congress held in Spain.

Following in the footsteps of Apple’s iPhone 5s, Samsung’s S5 includes a biometric fingerprint scanner. This will enable one-touch mobile payments through PayPal.

This means that Galaxy S5 users with PayPal accounts can log in and pay for their purchases at checkout with a finger swipe.

The S5 will store its user’s biometric data to the device itself, similar to the Touch ID that Apple employs. It then encrypts this data and sends it off to PayPal for verification.

PayPal says that this is FIDO Alliance compliant. FIDO, or Fast Identity Online, is an initiative including PayPal, MasterCard, Discover, and Google, dedicated to moving past the reliance on passwords by changing the nature of secure authentication.

Carriers have listed the S5 as releasing sometime in April, and it could very well be the first biometric mobile payment option to market.

Apple is said to be developing an independent mobile payment service to compete with PayPal, which was hinted at by Apple CEO Tim Cook during an earnings call.

There have also been several patent filings by Apple popping up supporting the company’s movement towards payment processing.