What you need to know
- To elevate the Samsung Pay experience, Samsung is partnering with SoFi to launch an "innovative" debit card.
- The new debit card will run on a new mobile-first money management platform.
- Samsung Pay support for your phone will remain.
In August 2015, Samsung introduced its mobile payment service called Samsung Pay in South Korea. Just a month later, Samsung Pay expanded to the U.S. While it isn't the most widely available mobile payment service out there, its MST support — that lets you pay at traditional "swipe" readers with your phone — makes it the most flexible. While celebrating the five-year anniversary of Samsung Pay, the South Korean tech giant has announced that it will be launching an "innovative debit card" in partnership with San Francisco-based fintech company SoFi this summer.
the value proposition is simplicity and mobile-first management of your money.
While it hasn't shared many details about the new offering yet, Samsung says the new debit card will be backed by a cash management account, running on your phone. The upcoming offering is aimed at helping users take control of their daily finances, as well as their overall financial lives. Samsung has been working on the "mobile-first money management platform" for a year and believes that it will allow consumers to manage their money more effectively to achieve their financial goals.
Over the last five years, Samsung has forged numerous partnerships with leading financial companies to elevate the Samsung Pay experience for users. In addition to being the first mobile payment service with MST support, Samsung Pay was also the first to offer a rewards program, allowing users to earn Samsung Rewards points on every transaction. Samsung also launched a Cashback program for Samsung Pay users in 2018, offering up to 12 percent cashback on purchases made from select retailers.
The direct comparison to the Apple Card and Apple Pay is pretty apparent, though this has the distinct difference of being a debit card rather than a credit card. By working with SoFi this also isn't tied to a large banking institution, as Apple is with Goldman Sachs. I'm curious to see how those differentiators will play out when Samsung launches this debit card this summer.
