Samsung has expanded the payments capabilities of Samsung Wallet in South Africa with the introduction of Scan to Pay, allowing Galaxy smartphone users to complete QR-based transactions directly from the wallet at participating merchants. Provided by EFT Corp, the feature extends Samsung Wallet beyond conventional card-based mobile payments and connects users to a QR acceptance network spanning more than 600,000 locations across the country. The move reflects a wider shift in digital payments as technology companies, banks and fintech providers look to make mobile wallets capable of supporting multiple payment methods through a single consumer interface.
Samsung Wallet Expands Into QR Payments
The new Scan to Pay functionality allows Galaxy users to make purchases by opening Samsung Wallet, scanning a merchant’s QR code and confirming the transaction. It can be used where compatible QR codes are offered for payment, including participating physical retail locations and online transactions.
Rather than requiring customers to present a physical card, the transaction is initiated through the smartphone and authenticated digitally. Samsung said the feature is intended to reduce the number of steps involved in everyday payments while expanding the range of transactions that can be completed from Samsung Wallet.
The functionality is provided by EFT Corp’s Scan to Pay platform, an alternative payments network operating across South Africa. According to Samsung, Scan to Pay has more than 600,000 acceptance locations and is included across more than 19 million instances of consumer banking, fintech and financial services applications.
That existing distribution is significant because one of the longstanding challenges for alternative payment methods is acceptance. A new payment experience offers limited value to consumers unless it can be used across a sufficiently broad merchant network. Integrating an established QR infrastructure into Samsung Wallet gives the smartphone maker access to an existing payment ecosystem rather than requiring it to build merchant acceptance independently.
Digital Wallets Are Moving Beyond Stored Cards
The addition also demonstrates how the role of the digital wallet continues to evolve. Early smartphone wallets were largely designed to reproduce the physical card experience digitally, allowing consumers to store payment cards and make contactless transactions through their devices. Increasingly, however, wallets are becoming broader financial interfaces capable of accommodating different payment rails, credentials and services.
QR payments can play an important role in that expansion because they do not necessarily require the same point-of-sale infrastructure associated with traditional contactless card payments. Merchants can display a QR code that connects the customer to the payment process, creating another route between the consumer’s mobile device and the merchant.
South Africa already has an established QR payments ecosystem supported by banks, fintech companies and payment providers. Bringing Scan to Pay directly into Samsung Wallet gives Galaxy users another way to access that infrastructure without necessarily opening a separate payment application for each transaction.
Samsung is positioning the development as part of a broader effort to make its wallet function as an everyday digital utility rather than solely a place for storing payment cards.
“One of the core fundamentals within the product design process is having a deep understanding of what our users do with our devices, and importantly how we can make everyday usage more intuitive and easier,” said Zahir Cajee, MX Lead: Product and commercial Samsung South Africa.
Cajee added that Samsung intends to continue introducing additional functionality within its wallet ecosystem.
Security Moves With the Payment Experience
The expansion of payment options also increases the importance of authentication and device security as more financial activity moves onto smartphones. Samsung said Scan to Pay transactions are protected through Samsung Knox, its device security platform, alongside biometric authentication used to approve payments.
This reflects an increasingly important direction for digital payments, where convenience at checkout depends on security mechanisms operating largely behind the customer experience. Rather than requiring users to repeatedly enter payment information, authentication can increasingly be tied to the trusted device and the biometric credentials already associated with it.
The approach is particularly relevant as digital wallets expand beyond simple contactless card transactions. As more payment methods, credentials and financial services become accessible through a single wallet, the smartphone itself becomes an increasingly important point of trust between the consumer and the financial ecosystem.
QR Payments Gain Another Distribution Channel
For South Africa’s payments market, Samsung’s move gives QR payments another significant consumer distribution channel. QR technology has already become an important alternative payment method in several markets because it can bridge different banks, payment applications and merchant environments without requiring consumers and merchants to rely exclusively on traditional card interactions.
The development also illustrates the growing competition over which interface consumers use when they pay. Banks may provide the account, card networks may provide the underlying payment rails, fintech companies may operate alternative payment infrastructure and merchants control the checkout environment, but smartphone wallets increasingly sit directly in front of the customer.
That position gives wallet providers an opportunity to aggregate multiple ways of paying within one experience. As wallets add QR payments alongside contactless cards and other digital credentials, consumers may increasingly choose the payment method from the wallet rather than beginning the transaction through an individual bank or payment application.
Scan to Pay is now available through Samsung Wallet for supported Galaxy users at participating locations in South Africa.
What it means for the industry
- Digital wallets are expanding beyond digitised cards. Adding QR payments gives Samsung Wallet another payment rail and reinforces the broader evolution of wallets into multi-function financial interfaces.
- Existing acceptance networks can accelerate wallet adoption. Connecting Samsung Wallet to more than 600,000 Scan to Pay locations gives the feature immediate practical reach without requiring a new merchant network to be built from scratch.
- QR remains relevant alongside contactless payments. The technology provides another route to digital acceptance and can work across merchant environments where conventional card-based infrastructure may not be the only option.
- The smartphone is becoming a more important payments control point. As consumers access multiple payment methods through one wallet, device makers can occupy an increasingly influential position between banks, payment networks, merchants and customers.
- Authentication will become increasingly embedded in the device. Biometrics and device-level security allow payment experiences to become simpler for customers while moving more of the underlying security into the wallet and smartphone infrastructure.
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