Samsung Pay has fired the latest salvo in the mobile wallet wars, adding support for membership and loyalty cards in the US.
With the average American household carrying almost 30 loyalty cards, the new feature is promising to help users slim down their wallets by accessing their gym, drugstore, supermarket programmes through the Samsung Pay app.
To use membership or loyalty cards, Americans simply launch the app, select the appropriate card, hold their Samsung Galaxy smartphone screen up to the merchant’s scanner, and let the card’s barcode be scanned at the register.
Nana Murugesan, VP, strategy and operations, Samsung Electronics America, says: "Right now, shoppers have several things—credit and debit cards, membership cards, coupons, gift cards—they need to take out of their wallets and scan at the register. Samsung is simplifying the checkout experience by bringing those items to your phone, representing our next step toward a world without physical wallets."
Samsung is waging a global mobile payments battle with Apple and Google, which today launched in the UK. In its home market of South Korea, Samsung appears to be winning, racking up a trillion won ($850 million) in transactions in the nine months since launching, making it the top m-payments app in the country last month.