2019 – The Year of Cardless Banking

Could innovations like Samsung Pay and the introduction of cardless banking usher in a new era in banking

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – 24 January, 2018 – Banking has always been a chore. According to a 2015 Finscope Survey, South Africans can spend up to 3 hours getting to and from their bank branch or an ATM*. And then of course, you still have to wait in queues. Fortunately, innovative technology such as Samsung Pay is revolutionising the way we use our bank cards.

“Samsung Pay has brought South Africans a new level of convenience and security when making contactless mobile payments. It makes a rushed trip to the stores and shopping malls, a lot easier. Armed with your ever-present smartphone, you can now pay with your smartphone faster and more conveniently than with a debit or credit card. It’s this kind of convenience where technology can make a massive difference in our lives,” says Justin Hume, Director: Integrated Mobility at Samsung South Africa.

Debit and credit cards have already made a literal impact on wallets. They have allowed many people to go cashless. This development, along with cardless banking at ATM’s, which is being widely promoted by local banks recently, has changed the banking landscape massively. The recent arrival of Samsung Pay on the local market is therefore well timed to turn your smartphone into virtually the only payment device you need.

With a bank card loaded on a Samsung smartphone, paying is as simple as swiping upwards on your screen, authenticate via PIN, fingerprint or iris and hold your phone by the payment terminal. Additionally, Samsung Pay’s security exceeds other mobile payment methods. Through tokenisation from Visa and MasterCard the physical card information is never used during the payment process but instead a unique cryptographic sequence and token is used for the transaction, where the cryptographic sequence changes with every transaction made. Samsung Pay also works almost anywhere you can swipe, insert or tap a card. That’s a first in South Africa.

Even if 2019 is not the year of complete cardless banking, it’s undeniably still closer than we’ve even been before. The future has clearly arrived.

Samsung Pay can be downloaded for free from the Google Play Store and used on the following compatible Samsung devices: Galaxy Note 9, Note 8, S9/S9+, S8/S8+, S7/S7 edge, A8 (2018), A7 (2017) and A5 (2017). If you cannot find Samsung Pay in the Google Play store, please do a firmware update for your smartphone to get access to this amazing feature.