Samsung initially launched the Wallet app in 2013 before changing it to Samsung Pay in 2015. Now, the tech giant is bringing Wallet back by merging Pass and Pay into a single app to store all your payment information, car keys, and much more.
The new Samsung Wallet was first announced earlier this year during its Unpacked event. During the announcement, it was revealed that seven countries would be getting the feature, namely South Korea, the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. However, according to the company’s recent press release, the official rollout now seems to exclude its home territory of South Korea.
Wallet is launching with many of the features previously announced, including the storing of payment cards, loyalty and membership cards, and passwords, combining the functionalities of Pay and Pass that. It also ingrates with the existing Blockchain Wallet app so users can check on their dwindling cryptocurrency portfolio.
Galaxy smartphone users can also use the app to unlock SmartThings doors with a digital home key. And speaking of digital keys, Samsung Wallet also integrates the Digital Key feature, the company’s rival to Apple CarKey. This lets you unlock your car using just your key with compatible cars which include brands such as Audi, BMW, Ford, Genesis, Kia, and Porsche, although this feature is limited to South Korea for now.
Samsung also says that it will be adding support for official digital IDs later this year, such as driving licenses and student IDs. At launch, Wallet is only supporting digital boarding passes for Korean Air, which is a bit odd considering that the app won’t be available in South Korea.
Samsung Wallet is supported on any Galaxy phone that supports Pay and is running on Android 9 or later, though some features such as the digital car key require UWB connectivity and some require embedded Secure Element (eSE) hardware. For security, the app utilises Samsung Knox, which uses fingerprint recognition and encryption to protect user data.
(Source: Samsung)
