South Korea’s electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co. has launched Samsung Pay in Mexico, the 20th country its mobile payment system has made a foray into under the company’s aggressive plan to expand the service across the globe.

According to Samsung Electronics on Tuesday, it has partnered with Mexico’s financial entities including payment processing companies (American Express, MasterCard and Visa), banks (Banorte, Banregio, Citibanamex, HSBC and Santander) and related service providers such as Clip and iZettle to launch Samsung Pay in the country. Mexico is the second South American nation after Brazil to be offered the service that is now available in 20 countries.

Samsung Pay is Samsung Electronics’ mobile payment service that allows its users to store their credit card or debit card information in their smartphones and pay for goods or services by simply placing their smartphones near a merchant’s payment device. When the service was first unveiled, it instantly grabbed attention thanks to its magnetic secure transmission (MST) technology that works with old magnetic stripe card readers, which are more prevalent than near-field communication (NFC)-backed card machines. Samsung Pay also uses NFC to send payment information to a card payment terminal.

Since it was first introduced in Korea in August 2015, the services has advanced into 19 other countries including the United States, China, Spain, Singapore, Australia, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Russia, Thailand, Malaysia, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Vietnam, and Mexico.

As part of efforts to expand its global service, Samsung Electronics in July joined hands with the world’s leading online payment service provider PayPal Holdings Inc.

By Hwang Hyung-gyu and Lee Eun-joo

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