Samsung is the latest tech company to attempt to replace your traditional wallet with a mobile-based digital wallet. Samsung Wallet, a new mobile wallet for storing digital keys, boarding passes, ID cards, and credit cards, was released by the firm on Thursday. In recent weeks, Apple and Google have announced significant changes to their virtual wallet systems.
Galaxy users in the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain may now launch the Samsung Pay or Samsung Pass applications on their Samsung Pay-enabled Galaxy phones running Android 9 Pie or later migrate to the new Samsung Wallet.
Samsung Wallet will provide customers with easy access to their payment, loyalty, and membership cards, among other cards. It also interfaces with the Samsung Blockchain Wallet to allow users to manage their digital asset portfolio by monitoring the value of cryptocurrencies. The firm emphasises that Samsung Wallet also incorporates Samsung Pass, which saves passwords securely and validates user identities using biometric data when logging into applications and services.
The mobile wallet may also be used to hold essential documents, such as your COVID-19 immunisation certificate. Samsung Wallet will enable official IDs such as mobile driving licences and student IDs from chosen universities later this year.
Samsung Wallet is also compatible with SmartThings to enable digital car keys for certain BMW, Genesis, and Hyundai vehicles. The connection will enable customers to lock and unlock their vehicles, as well as start their engines, straight from their mobile wallet. The capability is available for numerous BMW automobiles made after July 2020, including the 1-8 Series, X5, X5 M, X6, X6 M, X7, Z4, iX3, iX, and i4 models. Additionally, Genesis GV60 cars introduced after September 2021, G90 models introduced after December 2021, and Hyundai Palisade models introduced after May 2022 are equipped with this feature.
Samsung also states that customers may save their boarding cards in their Samsung Wallet beginning with certain Korean Air flights. When consumers will be able to upload boarding passes from other airlines is unknown.
Samsung says that Samsung Wallet is safeguarded by Samsung Knox. To secure users’ sensitive data, fingerprint recognition and encryption are used as safeguards. Samsung further mentions that some vital essential things in Samsung Wallet are kept in an isolated environment known as the embedded “Secure Element” to prevent digital and physical hacking.
“Samsung Wallet brings a new level of daily ease to mobile devices by providing a completely safe and secure environment for saving digital keys, cards, and other information,” said Jeanie Han, executive vice president and head of digital life at Samsung Electronics. “As part of our continuous commitment to open ecosystems, we will continue to extend Samsung Wallet’s capabilities by collaborating with our valued partners and developers.”
The Samsung Wallet is quite similar to the Apple Wallet, which also enables users to save payment information and personal information, such as immunisation records. Notably, the Apple Wallet app has already begun allowing users to save their mobile driver’s licences and state IDs, with users in Arizona and Maryland having access to the capability initially. Currently, Apple Wallet does not support the storage of bitcoin information.
Samsung Wallet will also compete with Google Wallet, a new Android and Wear OS programme that allows users to store credit cards, loyalty cards, digital IDs, metro passes, concert tickets, vaccination cards, and more.
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