Rumor: Samsung smartwatch with Pay functionality to be released at the end of this year

In the second half of this year, a Samsung smartwatch with which users can pay contactless, claims a Korean newspaper. The payment technology functions via NFC and Samsung would start with its Samsung Pay service with partners in July.

The arrival of the smartwatch with the possibility of contactless payment was whispered to the Electronic Times newspaper by anonymous sources, Reuters reports. The wearable will use NFC for its payment functionality, just like the Apple Watch, for example. Information from an SDK previously revealed that Samsung is working on a round smartwatch with a rotating ring around the screen, which is presumably also the wearable that Electronic Times refers to.

At the end of last week, Samsung announced new details about its plans with Samsung Pay. The service will start with partners in July and will be rolled out in Europe, South Korea, China, Australia and South America. The service should be available to end users in September; by then, the Galaxy Note 5 is also expected.

The group aims that 15 to 20 percent of its smartphone users will have the payment option in the first year. By 2020, Samsung hopes to have 17 million users for the payment service. Samsung Pay works with nfc and with the mst technology, with which a magnetic strip can be simulated by having a telephone generate a small magnetic field.