Samsung on Tuesday said it’s adding a tap-to-pay feature to Galaxy phones that should make paying back your friends and family a little easier. Called Tap to Transfer, the new capability lets you send money that arrives within minutes, according to the company. The feature will be available later this month in Samsung Wallet.
Through a partnership with Visa and Mastercard, Samsung smartphone owners can now use a debit card stored in their Samsung Wallet to send money to someone’s bank account via NFC technology, even if the recipient uses a digital wallet on a non-Samsung device. They can either connect to a recipient’s debit card stored in their digital wallet, or transfer money to a physical debit card, as long as it has tap-to-pay capabilities.
People can also send money to another Samsung Wallet even if the recipient isn’t nearby; they’ll just need to find their Samsung account by searching their phone number.
“Many users want the flexibility to accomplish their most frequent and important tasks on their mobile device,” Drew Blackard, Samsung Electronics America’s senior vice president of mobile product management, said in a statement. “Samsung Wallet will help make payments to friends and family quick and convenient.”
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Samsung Wallet launched in 2022 as a way to digitally store everything from credit cards to IDs to boarding passes. It offers similar functionality to other digital wallets like Apple Wallet and Google Wallet. These platforms can speed up in-store payments by allowing you to simply tap your phone at checkout, while also storing everything from gym memberships to loyalty cards and gift cards. Analysts predict the value of tap-to-pay transactions from digital wallets will rise more than 150% by 2028, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
For more, check out our roundup of the best digital wallets and payment apps. And following the shutdown of the standalone Zelle app, you can also check out our list of other ways to send money digitally.
