Samsung Wallet users can now use Scan to Pay at thousands of merchant locations across South Africa

Every Galaxy user in South Africa now has access to South Africa's largest QR payment network — directly from Samsung Wallet.

Scan to Pay, provided by EFT Corp, is now live as a payment feature within Samsung Wallet. Wherever a Samsung Wallet user sees a Scan to Pay QR code — at a till, on a bill, at a fuel station or at online checkout — they can now scan it and pay straight from their phone. No physical card. No card machine. No complicated setup.

Scan. Pay. Done.

The experience is built around three steps:

1. Open Samsung Wallet

2. Scan the QR code

3. Confirm the payment

That's the whole journey. There is no card to pull out of a wallet, no PIN pad to reach across a counter for, and no waiting while a terminal connects. From the moment a customer sees the QR code to the moment the payment clears, the transaction is measured in seconds.

For anyone who has stood in a queue behind someone hunting for a card, or watched a card machine fail to connect at the worst possible moment, this is the difference. Scan to Pay in Samsung Wallet is designed to remove that friction entirely.

Where Samsung Wallet users can now pay

Scan to Pay is accepted at more than 600,000 merchant locations across South Africa — from grocery retailers and fuel forecourts to restaurants, online stores and bill payments.

If a Samsung Wallet user is buying groceries, filling up the car, paying a restaurant bill, settling a municipal account or checking out online, and a Scan to Pay QR code is presented, they can pay with their phone.

The Scan to Pay network is also embedded across more than 19 million app inclusions in consumer banking, fintech and financial service provider applications throughout South Africa. Samsung Wallet now joins that network, giving Galaxy users access to the same acceptance footprint that South Africa's major banks already plug into.

Fast, by design

Speed is not a side effect of QR payments — it is the point.

A card transaction at the till involves handing over a physical card, inserting or tapping it, waiting for the terminal to connect, entering a PIN and waiting again for a receipt. Every step in that sequence is a place where something can slow down.

Scan to Pay through Samsung Wallet collapses that into a scan and a confirmation. The customer's phone never leaves their hand. The merchant does not need to operate a card machine. And the transaction completes in the time it takes to look at a screen.

For merchants, faster individual transactions add up to shorter queues, higher throughput at peak trading hours, and a smoother experience for the customer standing at the front of the line.

Secure, by default

Speed means very little without trust behind it.

Payments made through Scan to Pay in Samsung Wallet are protected by Samsung Knox, Samsung's defence-grade mobile security platform, with biometric approval adding a further layer of authentication to every transaction. The payment is authorised on the device by the person making it — not by a card that anyone could pick up and use.

On the Scan to Pay side, every transaction is authenticated through the issuing bank. Card details are never exposed to the merchant's till, and sensitive payment data does not sit in the checkout environment. The merchant receives confirmation that the payment has cleared. They never see the card number.

The result is a payment method that is quicker than a card at the point of sale and, at the same time, harder to compromise.

A better everyday payment for South Africa

South Africa has one of the highest smartphone penetration rates on the continent, and QR payment acceptance has expanded rapidly across the country's retail, fuel, hospitality and bill payment sectors. What has been missing for many consumers is a payment experience that feels as fast and natural as the phone in their pocket.

"Samsung doesn't just focus on tech and AI innovation for Galaxy users. One of the core fundamentals within the product design process is having a deep understanding of what our users do with our devices, and importantly how we can make everyday usage more intuitive and easier. Our Wallet encompasses the true sense of what a Digital Wallet should be, we will continue to add practical innovation within our Wallet functionality," says Zahir Cajee, MX Lead: Product and Commercial, Samsung South Africa.

"Scan to Pay has spent years building the acceptance side of QR payments in South Africa — thousands of locations where a QR code is already a valid way to pay. What Samsung brings is the other half of that equation: millions of Galaxy devices already in South Africans' pockets. Putting Scan to Pay inside Samsung Wallet means those two networks meet, and paying by QR stops being something you have to think about and becomes something you just do," says Paul Selibas, Managing Director of Scan to Pay.

Getting started

Scan to Pay is available now within Samsung Wallet at participating locations. Galaxy users can open Samsung Wallet, look for the Scan to Pay option, and start paying by QR code immediately.

For merchants who are not yet accepting Scan to Pay, acceptance can be enabled through your existing bank, payment service provider or acquirer — no new hardware required. Get in touch with our team to find out how.

Scan. Pay. Done.