Samsung Electronics Co Ltd has announced that its mobile payment service, Samsung Pay, has launched in South Africa.
Samsung Pay is the most widely accepted mobile payment platform, enabling users to make mobile payments almost anywhere using both MST and NFC technology. The first of its kind in Africa, it offers the ultimate flexible payment solution that features the benefits of both a physical and mobile wallet to make in-store purchases safer and simpler.
It also gives users full control of their digital payment journey by ensuring all transactions are secure and authenticated by the user. Featuring Samsung’s defence-grade Samsung Knox security platform and biometric authentication through iris or fingerprint scanning, users can have peace of mind that their personal payment information is safe. Additionally, tokenisation ensures that a user’s actual card information is never exposed during a transaction, making every payment more secure.
Samsung Pay is currently available for Absa and Standard Bank customers with supported Mastercard and Visa payment cards. Avios credit cards, British Airways credit cards and Virgin Money cards are also supported.
“Samsung Pay works almost anywhere you can swipe, insert or tap a card, so as the first country in Africa to implement this, we are hugely excited about how it’s going to transform our customers’ lives”, said Craige Fleischer, Vice President of Integrated Mobility for Samsung South Africa.
“Samsung Pay is committed to driving the mobile wallet movement in Africa and this launch furthers Samsung’s dedication to delivering innovative services to consumers everywhere.”
While cash might not be dead, and cards still dominate the payments landscape, the world of contactless payments is evolving faster than ever before. The way consumers make payments is changing faster than any area of financial services, impacted by rapid changes in digital technology, competitive forces and consumer demands.
Ethel Nyembe, Standard Bank SA Head of Card Issuing, added: “We want to make sure that Standard Bank’s payment solutions become the preferred choice for digital experiences – whether it be traditional cards, virtual cards, tap to pay, or Samsung Pay. Customers retain their plastic cards, but we are making sure that people who want to go beyond traditional payment methods can now participate in an exciting mobile payments world, which is getting bigger every day.”
To start using Samsung Pay, users should upgrade to the latest software version for their eligible Samsung Galaxy smartphone and simply download the Samsung Pay app.
Mark Elliott, Division President at Mastercard, Southern Africa, says, “We have been a pioneer of mobile commerce innovation for years and are excited to work with Samsung to deliver new frictionless payment options to consumers, in turn helping to accelerate the adoption of digital payments in South Africa.
“Every Samsung Pay transaction made with Mastercard is highly secure. A critical part of this is our ability to tokenise cardholder details, where a ‘token’ and not a real card number is provided to the shop, offering both consumers and retailers all the safety benefits and guarantees of a transaction made with a physical card.”
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