After seven years of honored career (four in Italy), Samsung Pay officially leaves the scene to make room for an old, indeed very old, acquaintance. Samsung Wallet, remember? The Seoul company had anticipated its return a few days ago when it announced that Samsung Pass and Pay would have merged into a single reality, namely Wallet. Samsung calls it one “new platform” and it does so with full knowledge of the facts, because the Wallet of almost ten years ago, which was replaced by Pay, and the current one, which replaces Pay, have very little in common.
Samsung Wallet is a modern platform, capable of containing all those documents that over the years technology has allowed us to digitize and condense into a single object, the smartphone: credit and debit cards, boarding passes, identity documents, season tickets, car keys (for now only BMW)etc., and takes advantage of the breadth and potential of the Seoul ecosystem to “collaborate” with services such as Samsung Blockchain, to monitor the performance of its portfolio of cryptocurrencies, or SmartThings, to open doors and gates, for example. However, it should be borne in mind that the availability of the individual functions will depend on the reference market: therefore it is not certain that in Italy the control of one’s cryptocurrencies or identity documents are (immediately) available.
The ability to store on a Galaxy i identity documents it’s a recent novelty, and it will come “within the end of the year”, probably only in some countries. Others are in their infancy, such as the one concerning the boarding passes limited to Korean Air flights for the time being. But as Jeanie Han, Samsung’s EVP said, “We will continue to expand the capabilities of Samsung Wallet by working closely with our trusted partners and developers.”so in a short time, especially now that Wallet is official and therefore has the public eye on it, its potential should be expanded.
SAFETY AND AVAILABILITY
Since this is a service capable of aggregating data and keys among the most precious we have, Samsung wanted to emphasize Wallet security which is in the hands of Samsung Knox. To access a fingerprint is required and in any case, the company assures, every data is encrypted so that only the owner – not even Samsung – can access the data. The most sensitive elements of all kept in Wallet are archived “in an isolated environment: Integrated Secure Element, which also offers protection from digital and physical hacking”.
Samsung Wallet is also available in Italy. To get it, simply open the Samsung Pay or Pass apps and follow the on-screen instructions to switch to Wallet. As mentioned above, the roll out will be concluded in July, so if update notifications do not appear we will be forced to wait.
