Back at MWC 2015, when Samsung announced the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge, it also unveiled its ambitious attempt on the existing mobile wallet scene. In order to stand above the crowd and competition from services of Google and Apple, Samsung's methodology involved use of NFC as well as a new proprietary technology called Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST).

In their own words:

"To date, mobile wallets have had extremely low acceptance with merchants utilising conventional magstripe terminals. With Samsung Pay, consumers can now utilise their mobile devices to pay at existing point-of-sale terminals. To achieve this, Samsung leverages both Near Field Communication (NFC) and a new proprietary technology called Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) to make mobile payments more accessible to merchants and consumers than ever before.

Samsung Pay has the potential of being accepted at approximately 30 million merchant locations worldwide, making it the only mobile payment solution with near universal acceptance. Consumers can use Samsung Pay in merchant locations regardless of whether the terminals support NFC or traditional magstripe, which is the vast majority of existing terminals."

In simpler words, Samsung Pay aimed to be the next best thing as it utilized the existing terminals of merchants, thereby overcoming the shortcoming of Google Wallet, which simply relied on NFC and put the onus on merchants to obtain supporting machinery.

test

If you are an Android enthusiast who values device freedom but couldn't resist purchasing a Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge, you may not be able to use Samsung Pay. As reported by Sammobile, it was speculated that "rooting" the phone would disable Samsung Pay. Earlier this week, fresh reports emerged which claimed that rooting the phone would disable Samsung Pay.

However, it is a misconception that "rooting" the phone would disable this feature. As several XDA Members have posted (here and here), tripping the KNOX counter (not "rooting" the device) is the action which disables Samsung Pay. Posting members have claimed that running unrooted stock roms on a tripped Knox counter did not re-enable Samsung Pay.

Wouldn't rooting the device trip the Knox counter? No, this is not the case for all methods used for rooting. Talking specifically about the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, PinPong Tool allows you to root your device without tripping the Knox counter. And if you have the T-Mobile S6 and S6 Edge on Android 5.1.1, you are covered on that end too.

So if you are a Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge user, you can still use Samsung Pay (when it is available in your country) even if you are rooted. Just make sure that the Knox counter is not tripped while you try to achieve root.

Let us know your thoughts on Samsung Pay and its connection with root and Knox in the comments below!

Read on for related coverage: