Samsung Adds QR Payment Feature to South African Digital Wallets

Samsung South Africa has added a new QR payment feature to its digital wallet.

Scan to Pay is designed to offer Samsung Galaxy users an alternative to physical cards and make checkout quicker, the tech company announced Friday (Aug. 28).

“Scan to Pay is designed to remove unnecessary friction from everyday transactions,” the company said in a news release. “There is no need to carry a physical card or navigate a complicated setup process. At participating locations, users can simply scan the QR code, authenticate their payment and complete their purchase.”

The feature is provided by Scan to Pay, a South Africa alternative payment solutions provider with “more than 600,000 acceptance locations across South Africa and over 19 million app inclusions across consumer banking, fintech and financial service provider applications,” Samsung added.

The goal here is to help “expand access to frictionless digital payments and accelerate the move towards a more cashless economy,” the release said.

The launch comes at a time when digital wallet usage is increasing both online and for in-store purchases, according to research from the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Apple Pay @11: Usage Is Up, but Competitors Are Gaining Ground.”

Upwards of 30% of consumers surveyed by PYMNTS said they had used a mobile wallet in a store during the previous week, more than twice the share reported two years earlier. The research also found that consumers increasingly fund wallet purchases with balances held directly with digital platforms.

“The movement toward stored balances gives digital wallets a broader role in the payment process,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this month. “A wallet that once acted mainly as a digital sleeve for a physical card can increasingly function like a small account of its own. The change could help providers create a smoother checkout experience while giving consumers another way to organize funds and make purchases.”

In other Samsung news, the company last month announced that the Samsung Wallet was being expanded to embrace stablecoins.

“This will make Samsung one of the first major mobile brands to bring native stablecoins to a smartphone, enabling fast and trusted digital value transfers,” Lee Dinham, product specialist at Samsung, said at the company’s Galaxy Unpacked event.

Also in July, Samsung announced it was debuting its first ever credit card, the Samsung Galaxy Card, which provides cash rewards for every purchase.