Samsung has launched a credit card in the US, the Samsung Galaxy Card. The card is issued by Barclays on the Visa network and managed entirely inside Samsung Wallet, where cardholders apply, track spending and redeem rewards. It comes as a virtual card and a metal physical card with no annual fee, and the rewards lean towards Samsung's own ecosystem: 5% cash back on purchases made directly with Samsung, 3% through Samsung Wallet, 2% on streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+ and Spotify, and 1% on everything else, with a $200 bonus for spending $2,000 in the first ninety days. Applications open to the public on 22 July, alongside Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event.
Co-brand or embedded finance
When a hardware giant like Samsung launches a credit card, we obviously have to think about the Apple Card. There are some similarities between the two card products, but also one crucial difference. Similar to the Apple Card launch in 2019, the Galaxy Card is US-only at the start and deeply integrated in the wallet. However, the Apple Card can be categorised as an embedded finance product, whereas the Galaxy Card is a co-branded solution. Barclays and Visa both called the launch a co-brand and pointed to a partner-first strategy. Barclays issues the card, underwrites the credit, holds the balances and owns the roadmap, the same division of labour that has sat behind airline and retail cards for decades.
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What Samsung gets out of it
The economics of a co-brand follow the ownership. Barclays holds the balances and takes the interest income, while Samsung gets the brand and the distribution. And the rewards table shows what Samsung is buying with that, because the richest cash back lands on purchases made directly with Samsung and on spending through Samsung Wallet, which turns the card into a loyalty engine pointed back at Samsung hardware and services. Samsung says seventy per cent of US households already own one of its devices; therefore, the card looks less like a move into financial services and more like a retention tool for customers Samsung already has.
Where Apple went further
The one part Samsung does own is the wallet. The application, the account management, the spending view and the rewards all happen inside Samsung Wallet, so Samsung holds the experience layer while Barclays owns the product beneath it, already a step past the classic co-brand where the bank owns the app as well. Nevertheless, Samsung doesn't come close to what Apple built. Apple owns the product and the experience so completely that when it began moving the card from Goldman Sachs to JPMorgan Chase this year, the issuing banks were reduced to swappable plumbing parts behind Apple's own product. Samsung has not gone that far, but maybe it will in the future? Reuters has already reported that Samsung sees ambitions in financial services beyond this card.
