Samsung today has announced that its Wallet app and feature will be available in eight new markets by the end of January 2023, including Malaysia. Its arrival comes close to a year after its initial introduction last year to a select number of countries in Asia, Europe, the United States, and the Middle East.
For the uninitiated, the new feature is pretty much the South Korean giant’s answer to Apple’s own Wallet app. Much like its rival, not only does it offer payment solutions from the existing Samsung Pay app, also included are secure storage functions for digitalised personal IDs, student IDs, credit and debit cards, boarding passes, supported cryptocurrencies, digital keys, and even movie tickets. Among the services and brands supported by Samsung Wallet currently includes Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Audi, Porsche, Ford, BMW, and many more.
To protect the numerous sensitive and private data stored on the app, Samsung employs several special security measures such as tokenization, which replaces sensitive payment card information with device-specific tokens that acts as a surrogate value. On top of that, security is also enforced by the brand’s own Knox utility which stores all critical data in a protected portion of memory on the user’s device.
Speaking of which, it would come as no surprise that users must own a supported Samsung smartphone in order to fully utilise all of Wallet’s features. According to the official FAQ page, compatible devices include the Galaxy S series from S8 to S20, Note series from Note8 to Note20, all Galaxy Z foldables, as well as several A series smartphones such as the A32 5G, A42 5G, A52 5G, A50, A51, A51 5G, A53 5G, A70, and A71 5G. Samsung further notes that the phones listed must be running on Android 9 or above.
(Source: Samsung [Newsroom])
