Samsung Launches Digital Multi-Account ‘Pay Card’

For consumers juggling various credit card balances and accounts, why not designate one new card, this one digital, to manage it all?

That’s the pitch Samsung is making, with the mobile, tech and electronics giant on Tuesday (Aug. 18) rolling out its Samsung Pay Card.

The new digital card, accessed through Samsung smartphones and watches, “collates” a range of debit and credit cards from a range of banks onto a single platform, with the aim of helping users to better manage their finances and credit, Samsung said in its product announcement release.

Samsung has teamed on the new digital credit offering with Mastercard and with Curve, a FinTech whose technology the mobile phone giant is utilizing for the Pay Card.

In a feature that Samsung clearly hopes will be a significant selling point, the new card will include “‘Go Back in Time’ functionality,” enabling users to move transactions from one card to another after they have already made a digital payment.

Samsung Pay first announced in the spring that it would be coming out with a new credit card management tool.

The news comes as Samsung Pay, its mobile payment platform, has steadily grown in popularity, rising to more than one billion transactions.

And while U.S. consumers have been somewhat slow – at least compared to their counterparts in China – in adopting contactless mobile payments, that may be changing in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Sales by consumers using mobile wallets for debit transactions soared 76.6 percent in the week ending Aug. 9 compared to the same period last year, according to credit union payments processor PSCU. Credit card transactions funneled through mobile wallets rose more than 48 percent.

“This is the future of banking, and we look forward to continuing this journey with our customers,” said Conor Pierce, corporate vice-president of Samsung U.K. and Ireland, in a press release.