By 
Samsung has been known to rival the top players, including Google themselves, with competing services, devices and platforms. Samsung’s Media Hub as well as their voice command app S Voice come to mind in a hurry. Who’s to say they wouldn’t eventually want to branch out into mobile payments to rival the likes of Google Wallet or ISIS?
We could be getting that in the form of the “Samsung Galaxy Card,” a name that has recently been trademarked by Samsung over at the USPTO. At first glance, it sounds like it could be something similar to Google’s play to be at the forefront of mobile payments known as the Google Wallet Card. It’s a pre-paid credit card that will debit money for purchases straight from your Google Wallet account. It’s not crazy to suggest Samsung would be looking to introduce something similar.
It wasn’t long ago that Samsung flashed signs of wanting to go their own way in the mobile payments world, with the OEM striking a deal with Visa to preload Visa’s PayWave tap-to-pay software on their NFC-equipped devices back in 2013.
It’d be yet another move in a long string of them that sees Samsung slowly trying to free itself from dependency on Google and Android. While the company has never come out and said it, Samsung feels like they’re big enough to build and maintain their own ecosystem and compete with the likes of Apple for mobile dominance.
Samsung has been among the happiest of the go-lucky when it comes to putting NFC in their smartphones, so we imagine they will eventually want to do more with that technology than simply allow users to beam pictures and sell Samsung TecTile NFC tags.
Throughout all this speculation, it’s imperative to remember that Samsung typically reserves the “Galaxy” name for Android devices, not services or other tech. The Samsung Galaxy Card could turn out to be something completely different than what our imagination has cooked up. We’ll just have to wait and see how all of this shapes up at some point in the future.
Samsung’s always busy with tons of different projects as they look to innovate in everything they do, so we weren’t surprised that they also took time to file a smorgasbord of other trademarks. Here’s a quick list of all of them:
- Future Ready
- Samsung Stitch
- Samsung Spectacular
- Samsung Index
- Samsung Network Booster
- Samsung Niche
- Samsung Magic Presenter
- Celldium
- Celltom
- Samsung Panoptic
At this point, we wouldn’t scoff at the idea that they’re just pulling random names out of a hat. We’d love to hear from you, so chime in below and let us know what you think the Samsung Galaxy Card might be (alongside all the other aforementioned names Samsung is taking care to protect).
Another NFC payment system that will be locked out by the carriers here in the US. Meh. If I have a phone that doesn’t have competing NFC systems locked out then I’m going to use Wallet. Plain and simple.
Although, seeing the direction Samsung is heading, I could see them locking other systems out themselves. Which is why my Note 3 will most likely be my last Samsung product.
Maybe Samsung could be trying to create one credit card things that allows you replace several credit cards in your wallet?
Getting ready for Tizen?!?
Probably but I dont see them leaving Android anytime soon or ever really
I don’t see how they’d get a big app store on Tizen, this is what I think would hold them back a lot. Anyone?
Too many people are dependent on the play store and Google apps for Samsung to leave Android. Tizen would be a niche product.
I hope so.
More lame sw from samsung that nobody wants. Like S voice, Samsung Hub, etc….
This probably explains why my new Note 3 won’t work with Google Wallet. This is BS.
NFC in it? security issues aside, why didn’t Google implement this already?