Samsung South Africa has announced that its digital wallet platform, Samsung Wallet, was introduced to the local market. The wallet merges Samsung Pay and Samsung Pass to store and access passwords, digital keys, and card details for both offline and online payments, alongside bank and membership cards, with the company describing the product as being an ‘easy-to-use’ platform that helps organise the user’s digital life needs.

Samsung Wallet can be used in three ways, users having the option to either swipe the screen up, tap the icon to open the app, or to double tap the side key. Company officials have stated that the wallet is a one-stop solution when it comes to replacing a physical wallet, saying that this digital innovation brings convenience to mobile devices, having a safe and secure environment that enables the storage of digital keys and cards, amongst others. Following its commitment to open ecosystems, the company is set on further expanding the Samsung Wallet capabilities, aiming to do so by working closely with local partners and developers.

Samsung Wallet is protected by security platform Samsung Knox, having protection capabilities of the likes of fingerprint recognition and encryption, enabling the safeguarding of local users’ sensitive data, and giving only device owners the ability to access their important information. Alongside Samsung Knox, certain key Samsung Wallet sensitive items are stored in an isolated environment, the embedded secure element, which helps protect against digital and physical hacking. To enable access to the Samsung Wallet, local Galaxy users should open either the Samsung Pay or Samsung Pass app from their eligible devices and follow the prompts for updating and migrating to the digital wallet.

Samsung past product developments This announcement comes after the South Korea-based company made public plans on bringing Samsung Wallet to 13 additional countries earlier in October 2022, and follows its launch into Qatar at the beginning of November 2022. In March 2022, Samsung entered a partnership with Moneyhub aimed at facilitating Open Banking payments on a retail self-service point-of-sale (POS) Kiosk. Through Moneyhub’s smart technology, Samsung Kiosk users are enabled to manage their payments in a direct and safe manner by scanning the QR code with their mobile phone, simplifying and expediting ordering and paying for both merchants and consumers.

In January 2022, the company introduced a security feature for biometric payment cards, fingerprint security IC (integrated circuit). The solution combined Secure Element, Secure Processor, and a fingerprint sensor in one chip, providing improved features enabled by the company’s in-house fingerprint authentication algorithm. The security IC solution was aimed at making biometric payment cards more fast and secure and removed the requirement of a PIN, while helping prevent fraudulent transactions made with stolen or lost cards.

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