Samsung Will Soon Let You Tap to Send Payments to Other Digital Wallets

If you have a Samsung Galaxy phone, you'll soon be able to send money to friends and family instantly simply by tapping your devices together. A new peer-to-peer payment feature transfers funds from debit cards in your Samsung Wallet to those stored in a recipient's digital wallet or their physical tap-to-pay card.

The feature will be available to Samsung Wallet users in the U.S. later this month.

How Samsung Wallet 'Tap to Transfer' works

Samsung's new "Tap to Transfer" feature utilizes NFC technology to connect to debit cards in any digital wallet, meaning you can send cash even if the recipient uses a different third-party app (like Apple Wallet or Google Wallet) or only has a physical debit card. Alternatively, you can transfer money to other Samsung Wallet users by searching for their phone number if they aren't nearby to tap.

There are a few benefits to Tap to Transfer. First, it doesn't require everyone to use the same peer-to-peer payment service like Venmo or Cash App, making it easier in situations like splitting dinner bills to move money around to all members of the group and eliminating the hassle of signing up for a new app. It also deposits funds to linked bank accounts in minutes (depending on the bank), so you don't have to wait days or pay fees for instant transfers. (Note that the debit card in your Samsung Wallet must be a Visa or Mastercard for this feature to work.)

Samsung Wallet, like Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, allows users to store everything from payment cards and IDs to loyalty cards and digital keys to concert tickets and boarding passes. Apple also has a peer-to-peer payment feature called Tap to Cash, but both users must have compatible iOS or watchOS devices with Apple Cash already set up.