Samsung Pay officially launches in South Africa
The Samsung Pay app has officially launched in South Africa after a brief early access period.
Speaking at a launch event in Sandton, Johannesburg, Samsung Africa president Sung Yoon announced that Samsung Pay has officially rolled out and was being well received.
The application is available for download from the Google Play Store and is compatible with the following devices:
- Samsung Galaxy Note 9
- Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+
- Samsung Galaxy Note 8
- Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+
- Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge
- Samsung Galaxy A8
Samsung has not confirmed whether Samsung Pay app is now available on the Galaxy A5 and A7 2017 smartphones.
Samsung Pay lets customers make card payments using their smartphones instead of their physical bank card by mimicking physical magnetic card stips using Magnetic Secure Transmission technology. The application is also compatible with NFC contactless payment terminals.
This allows users to make payments by tapping their smartphone against a card machine.
Currently, Standard Bank and Absa bank cards support Samsung Pay locally.
Local rollout
Yoon noted that the acceptance of Samsung Pay in South Africa is much better than that of the app’s US launch in 2013.
“It took three years to bring Samsung Pay to South Africa because we ran extensive tests together with local banks and credit card providers,” he said.
He said that the rollout to the rest of Africa depends on the adoption of credit and debit cards, with South Africa the only country on the continent to receive support for Samsung Pay this year.
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