The Galaxy Card pays 5% back on Samsung purchases and lives entirely inside Samsung Wallet, as the company signals plans that run beyond a single co-branded card.
Samsung has launched its first credit card in the United States, the Samsung Galaxy Card, a co-branded product issued by Barclays and running on Visa’s network.
This is the company’s clearest move yet into consumer finance, and a direct swing at the Apple Card in the one arena where Apple has led, which is turning a phone into a wallet.
Everything about the card sits inside Samsung Wallet, from the application to spending alerts and reward redemption, which is where Samsung’s wider fintech ambitions become legible.
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Sih Lee, executive vice-president and head of Samsung’s North America Fintech Business, described the tie-up with Barclays as “a strategic and long-term relationship”, and said the two companies intend to explore products beyond the card.
The rewards are the pitch. Cardholders earn 5% cash back on purchases made directly with Samsung, whether on Samsung.com, in Experience Stores, or through the Galaxy Store, and 3% on anything paid for with Samsung Wallet.
Streaming services including Netflix, Disney+, and Spotify earn 2%, and everything else earns 1%.
That top tier covers a wide slice of Samsung’s own ecosystem, taking in Care+ device protection, SmartThings, the Smart TV Store, and Secure Wi-Fi rather than hardware alone.
Woncheol Chai, who leads Samsung’s digital wallet team, said the aim was a card that “simplifies their life and offers them real value” for users he described as busy.
There is no annual fee, according to Samsung. New cardholders who spend $2,000 within 90 days of opening an account receive a $200 welcome bonus, and members of Samsung’s VIP Advantage loyalty scheme get 20% off a membership or renewal paid for with the card.
The structure reads as a deliberate overbid on Apple’s card, which pays 3% on Apple purchases and 2% through Apple Pay. Apple’s sign-up bonus, where offered, has typically been nearer $75.
Both cards carry no annual fee, and both are built to be used from a phone rather than pulled from a pocket.
Applicants can choose a virtual card, which earns the highest rate on Wallet spending, or a premium metal card in black with the Samsung logo.
Details, IDs, passes, and digital keys held in Samsung Wallet are stored on-device through the company’s Knox security platform.
For Barclays, the deal extends a run of US co-brand partnerships. Its US Consumer Bank acquired General Motors’ credit card business in 2024, and Doug Villone, its head of cards and partnerships, framed the Samsung card as part of an effort to build “a more seamless payments experience for customers, who increasingly manage finances through mobile devices rather than physical wallets”.
Barclays has toyed with the idea before, having once put contactless payments on a wristband.
Visa is providing the rails, and the card works anywhere Visa is accepted. Kirk Stuart, a senior Visa executive for North America, cast the arrangement as a way for a large consumer brand to fold payments into an experience its customers already use every day.
Samsung’s interest is scale. The company says roughly 70% of US households own at least one of its devices and nearly 30% own three or more, a base it hopes to turn into recurring financial engagement rather than one-off hardware sales.
The logic echoes an older bet, that the people who already pay with their phones are the easiest to sign up for the account behind them.
What Samsung has not detailed is the credit criteria, the interest rate range, or how quickly rewards post, though it describes the redemption as cash back handled inside Wallet.
Eligibility requires a Samsung account and a device running Android 9.0 or later, which keeps the highest-earning version of the card inside Samsung’s own hardware. Early-access customers can already apply.
Applications open to the general public on 22 July, the date of Samsung’s next Galaxy Unpacked event.
The company has not said which further financial products it is weighing, or when, only that the card is meant to be the first of several.
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