Samsung Pay users across the US can now add their merchant membership and loyalty cards to the mobile payment service and receive savings, rewards and other offers by having a card’s barcode scanned by the cashier at the point of sale.

“Users can upload and store merchant membership and loyalty cards in Samsung Pay — including from their gym, drug store, grocery store or any of their favourite retailers,” Samsung says. “Samsung Pay’s new membership feature can also be used to store other cards such as insurance and personal identification cards for safe keeping.

“To use membership or loyalty cards, users simply launch the Samsung Pay app, select the appropriate card, hold their Samsung Galaxy smartphone screen up to the merchant’s scanner and let the card’s barcode be scanned at the register.”

Quick access

“With this new feature, Samsung Pay is giving users quick access to their favourite membership and loyalty programs and making shopping even easier,” says Nana Murugesan, VP of strategy and operations for Samsung Electronics America.

“Right now, shoppers have several things — credit and debit cards, membership cards, coupons, gift cards — they need to take out their wallets and scan at the register. Samsung is simplifying the checkout experience by bringing those items to your phone, representing our next step toward a world without physical wallets.”

Samsung Pay was launched in Korea in August 2015 and in the US in September 2015. Its launch in China in partnership with China UnionPay was announced in December. Plans for a global expansion of the service were revealed at Mobile World Congress in February this year. It is expected to launch in Singapore in Q2 2016.

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