Foreign news: Samsung Pay delayed, biometric banking systems, Chinese bank in Riyadh

The launch of Samsung Pay, a joint venture between the handset maker and MasterCard and Visa, is to be delayed from July until September, reports Bloomberg. Samsung said its aim was for 15 to 20 per cent of its smartphone owners to use the payment service, which will be compatible with 90 per cent of magnetic-strip card readers. After starting off in the US and Korea, Samsung plans to expand to Europe, China, Australia and South America later this year.
There will be over one billion users accessing banking services through biometric systems by 2017, according to a report by research and consultancy firm Goode Intelligence. The report says biometrics is already a mature industry and predicts that by the end of 2015 some 450 million bank customers will be using biometrics in a variety of scenarios, including ATM withdrawals and authentications for mobile phone applications. Goode further predicts that by 2020 companies involved in delivering biometric systems to the banking industry will receive a total of US$5.5 billion in revenue.
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China plans to open its first branch in Riyadh, which would become its fifth branch in the Middle East. Arab News reports two-way trade between the two countries stood at US$69 billion last year. ICBC, which has claimed to be the Chinese bank with the largest business in the Middle East, launched its operations in the region in 2008. ICBC has previously set up branches in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Kuwait.