Samsung Wallet is finally available in India

Samsung Wallet
(Image credit: Android Central)

What you need to know

  • Samsung Pay will transition into Samsung Wallet in India.
  • Users can Tap & Pay, make UPI payments, and store banking cards through the new wallet app.
  • Galaxy device owners can upgrade to Samsung Wallet through the Galaxy Store.

Less than 48 hours remain until Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event 2023. While we wait, the South Korean tech giant continues transitioning its well-liked Samsung Pay to the new Samsung Wallet, and the switch is finally taking place in India.

Samsung Wallet replaced Samsung Pay in the U.S. and European nations in June of 2022. Samsung first revealed its plans to expand to new countries back in October.

The app is already accessible in 21 nations, and Samsung revealed early this month that it would be made available by the end of the month in countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan.

The shift is taking place as promised, and India is one of the nations benefitting from it. For those unaware, Samsung Wallet was made by combining Samsung Pay and Samsung Pass, the latter of which held information like login credentials and other secure data.

For Indian consumers, Samsung promises the new wallet app will be better than the existing Samsung Pay and gives a smarter way for people to pay securely. The integration of Samsung Pay includes the ability to Tap & Pay via NFC and store transaction cards like credit and debit cards.

SamMobile notes that AMEX, MasterCard, and VISA cards are compatible with Samsung Wallet, and other India-exclusive RuPay cards still need to be supported on Samsung Pay. It could change with the new changes to Samsung Wallet very soon.

India heavily relies on UPI (Unified Payment Interface), which allows users to bring their multiple bank accounts under one roof and make transactions hassle-free with apps like Google Pay, for example. This UPI ability is also supported by Samsung Pay in India, next to NFC payments, which now fall under Samsung Wallet.

Samsung device owners can upgrade their existing Samsung Pay service to Samsung Wallet through the company's Galaxy Store starting today.

Similar to Samsung, Google switched its Google Pay service to Google Wallet last year in the U.S. Although both wallets provide digital passes and payment methods, they have a few minor variations that you can see in our brief comparison between Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet.

Vishnu Sarangapurkar
News Writer

Vishnu works as a freelance News Writer for Android Central. For the past four years, he's been writing about consumer technology, primarily involving smartphones, laptops, and every other gizmo connected to the Internet. When he is away from keyboard, you can see him going on a long drive or chilling on a couch binge-watching some crime series.