Samsung Pay Through MST Not Available at Disney Parks
Back in 2014, contactless payment launched at the Walt Disney World and Disneyland Resorts as a new form of payment for Guests to use via their mobile device. Contactless payment is currently accepted at the Walt Disney World Resort in select locations. Since the launch of contactless payment, a variety of applications have been introduced to the market, including Apple Pay, Google Wallet, as well as one of the most recent applications, Samsung Pay.
Samsung Pay consists of two payment technologies: the original contactless payment NFC technology, and a second payment technology called Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST), which requires a device to be held over a payment terminal’s magnetic stripe reader. This action sends a signal to the payment terminal that emulates swiping a physical card.
Samsung Pay MST technology is not accepted at any location around the Walt Disney World Resort, however the Samsung Pay contactless payment method is accepted at most locations on property.
Touch-to-pay stationary devices at Walt Disney World owned and operated locations are equipped to handle only contactless payment, MagicBands, and physical card swipe transactions. Although touch-to-pay stationary devices are equipped with a magnetic stripe reader, the devices are not MST-compatible.
MST uses a terminals existing magstripe reader to receive wireless transmission of card data. It's like an 'air swipe' you could say.
ReplyDeleteThis has been touted as a great tech for retailers who might not have updated hardware for the new chip cards.
Problems are: banks, independent card processing services, have been updating their customers hardware for months and months. The new hardware often has mag stripe reader, but the focus is on chip. The US is behind the rest of the modern world by still utilizing mag stripe tech. The new EMV system uses the chip, but signature required. In Europe the chip/pin method us used.
Anyway the mag stripe is on the way out. Samsung bought the MST tech as a bridge solution between stripe and newer tech (chip, NFC)
Disney needn't bother supporting every possible pmt system, least of all a bridge tech already superseded by the tech used by the vast majority of its guests.
The point of MST technology is that it is not hardware dependent. It is not something that Disney can turn on or off.
ReplyDeleteI have used Samsung Pay, and everywhere I can access the magnetic reader (ie I don't have to hand my phone to a cashier) It works. It works well.
The only way Disney can refuse Samsung Pay via MST is by Cast member enforcement. The cashiers must ask people to stop... assuming the customer swipes their own cards. Of course if the cashier swipes the card, then enforcement is simple.
Its funny how many people don't actually understand MST and Samsung Pay.
On another point.. mag stripes are not going anywhere. They are cheap, and gift cards will always have them. Expect to see them on credit card terminals for many, many years to come. In addition ATM/Debit cards are not part of the EMV chip conversions (unless you can use them as credit). Gas pumps, ATM machines and a few other places will be mag stripes for a very long time.
Well said,
ReplyDeleteI've said before Idk that Disney can turn off MST as much as they can not turn it on. I have retailers around me that must press something for the card reader to be ready to accept a swiped card. If that is the case at Disney then the cast member would just not press that option and enforcement becomes easy. I had a debate with my Fiancée's eye glass place, these people were dumb to the point when I said "please take me to your strip reader" they said "we don't have a strip reader" and they really thought that. Any place that takes a credit card, other than those ancient registers that have like six inches or more of plastic around the reader, can take Samsung Pay, just have to teach the cashier that.