Magnetic secure transmission (MST) is the name for

mobile payment Mobile payment, also referred to as mobile money, mobile money transfer and mobile wallet, is any of various payment processing services operated under financial regulations and performed from or via a mobile device. Instead of paying with cas ...

technology in which devices such as

smartphones A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as mult ...

emit a signal that mimics the

magnetic stripe The term digital card can refer to a physical item, such as a memory card on a camera, or, increasingly since 2017, to the digital content hosted as a virtual card or cloud card, as a digital virtual representation of a physical card. They shar ...

on a traditional

payment card Payment cards are part of a payment system issued by financial institutions, such as a bank, to a customer that enables its owner (the cardholder) to access the funds in the customer's designated bank accounts, or through a credit account and ...

Overview

MST sends a magnetic signal from the device to the

payment terminal A payment terminal, also known as a point of sale (POS) terminal, credit card machine, card reader, PIN pad, EFTPOS terminal (or by the older term as PDQ terminal which stands for "Process Data Quickly"), is a device which interfaces with payme ...

's card reader. It emulates swiping a physical card without having to upgrade the terminal's software or hardware to support more advanced technology, such as contactless payments. Hence, in contrast to payments using

near-field communication Near-field communication (NFC) is a set of communication protocols that enables communication between two electronic devices over a distance of or less. NFC offers a low-speed connection through a simple setup that can be used for the boots ...

, MST technology is compatible with nearly all payment terminals that possess a magnetic stripe reader. MST is designed to transmit from within of the magnetic card reader. Outside of physical transmission, there are no changes to the magnetic stripe card system (i.e., reception, processing, information content, and cryptographic protocols). However, the information being transmitted being dynamic may allow tokenization. MST was originally developed by LoopPay, which was acquired by

Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...

in 2015 and incorporated into its

Samsung Pay Samsung Pay (stylized as SΛMSUNG Pay) is a mobile payment and digital wallet service, operated by the South Korean company Samsung Electronics. It lets users make payments using compatible smartphones and other Samsung-produced devices, accesse ...

service. In 2017, LG launched its competing LG Pay service, which uses a similar technology called Wireless Magnetic Communication (WMC). The original MST and WMC mimicked unencrypted magnetic stripe technology in order to be compatible with older credit card terminals. The wireless transmissions were not encrypted and therefore not considered "secure". The Samsung Pay and LG implementations of MST use secure

EMV EMV is a payment method based on a technical standard for smart card, smart payment cards and for payment terminals and automated teller machines which can accept them. EMV stands for "Europay International, Europay, Mastercard, and Visa Inc., ...

compatible tokens and are considered to be secure.

References

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