Customers can now use Samsung Pay on their mobile phone to travel on London's transport network as part of its wider UK launch this week.

The new payment app, which can be downloaded from the Samsung Galaxy Apps store, supports MasterCard and Visa credit and debit cards from major UK financial institutions. It can be used for pay as you go journeys by bus, Tube, tram, DLR, London Overground, TfL Rail, Emirates Air Line, River Bus and most National Rail services in London.

To help make it easier for customers, Samsung has worked with TfL to allow users to set a payment card specifically as a transport card to use on all TfL services and most National Rail services in London. Customers just need to add their payment card to the app and nominate it as a transport card. Once registered, the phone screen does not have to be on — users simply touch the middle of their phone on the yellow card reader in the same way they use their Oyster or contactless payment card to pay as you go.

When customers pay as you go using contactless, TfL apply a daily or weekly (Monday to Sunday) cap where appropriate to ensure customers get best value and don't get charged for further journeys in the same travel zones for the rest of the day / week.

TfL was the first public transport provider to accept contactless payments with around 40 per cent of all pay as you go journeys made in London now made using them. Of these, almost one in ten transactions (nine per cent) are now made using mobile devices, with more than 31 million journeys made using mobile phones in London in the last 12 months.

Samsung Pay is available at launch on the Galaxy S8/S8+, S7/S7 edge, S6/S6 edge (subject to a software update) and will become available on additional Samsung devices in the coming months.

Contactless payments were launched on London's buses in December 2012 and on Tube and rail services in September 2014. Since launching, more than 900m journeys have been made by contactless cards/devices from more than 100 countries across the world.