SHOPPERS and diners in Singapore will soon have a new mobile payment option, with Samsung Pay to be launched here on June 16, the South Korean electronics giant said on Friday at a launch event.

The Republic is the fifth in the world and first in South-east Asia to land the service.

It was first made available in South Korea in August last year, followed by the United States, China and Spain.

Samsung Pay has over five million registered users and recorded more than US$500 million worth of transactions globally, Samsung said in February this year.

Consumers holding Visa or MasterCard credit and debit cards issued by Citibank, DBS, POSB, OCBC and Standard Chartered here will be able to pay at nearly all payment-acceptance points that accept credit cards with a compatible Samsung smartphone.

American Express is expected to be accepted at a later date.

Close to 40 retailers will be accepting Samsung Pay at launch, including 7-Eleven, NTUC FairPrice and BreadTalk, Samsung added.

Four Samsung Galaxy smartphones - the S6 edge+, S7, S7 edge and Note 5 - will offer the service.

Samsung Pay works with a proprietary Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) technology that can be accepted at both traditional magnetic-stripe credit-card terminals and Near-Field Communication (NFC) contactless payment terminals.

Due to the MST technology, Samsung Pay users will not have a payment cap - subject to the cardholder's credit limit with banks - while NFC readers accept payments of up to S$100.

To prevent fraud, Samsung Pay uses an encrypted digital token to replace sensitive card information, and all transactions made via the service require fingerprint or PIN for authorisation.

Users will need to swipe up on their smartphones to bring up the last transacted credit or debit card and scan their fingerprint or key in their PIN to make payment.

Samsung's incursion into mobile payments in Singapore comes on the back of rival Apple Pay's Singapore launch in April this year.

Said Samsung Pay vice-president and global general manager Thomas Ko: "Since the introduction of Samsung Pay last year, we have seen great momentum and experienced significant consumer adoption. We are excited to bring this service to Singapore consumers and we hope to introduce value-added services to drive and lead innovation in mobile commerce."