Google’s recent acquisition of Softcard’s NFC payments business may hit Samsung Pay’s prospects for widespread US adoption hard, says a respected payments consultant. Commenting on Samsung Pay’s launch, Tom Noyes is enthusiastic about the system’s mechanism for wider merchant acceptance but, he writes, “even if it were ready today it will never be pre-loaded on ANY phone in the US given the recent Google/Softcard deal with all three major US MNOs.”

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