Samsung Pay scheduled to launch in the second half of 2015

Samsung has revealed that its mobile payments service, Samsung Pay, will be launched in the second half of this year, and the first countries to take advantage of the service will be the US and South Korea.

The revelation was made by Samsung Electronics’ Managing Director, Park Jin-Young, who also said that “the consecutive release schedule to the rest of the other countries […] in the second half of the year is still under discussion.“

For those who aren't in the know, Samsung Pay was announced back in March during this year's Mobile World Congress (MWC). It uses near-field communications (NFC) and magnetic secure transmission (MST) technology developed by LoopPay.

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Rooting the Galaxy S6 will break Samsung Pay

Samsung will launch its Samsung Pay service sometime this summer. It will allow owners of the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge to use their smartphones to make payments easily in retailers that support both NFC and magnetic secure transmission payments. The service won’t function properly if you root your smartphone, however, so keep that in mind before tweaking your device.

SamMobile said that, like Samsung’s KNOX security feature, Samsung Pay will automatically be disabled on a device that’s rooted. “When you root your device, the integrity gets breached, which is necessary for important and sensitive features like mobile payments,” SamMobile explained on Wednesday.

It’s not the end of the world for rooters, but Samsung Pay looks like it’s going to be a pretty awesome service. The support for magnetic secure transmission payments, which was added likely thanks to Samsung’s acquisition of LoopPay, will open up support for payments in places where even Apple Pay isn’t supported.

It’s your phone, though, and ultimately the decision is yours. Just consider the pros and cons first.