Samsung Electronics and Woori Bank are taking Samsung Wallet Money overseas, adding WeChat Pay QR payments in China and Mastercard contactless payments abroad for South Korean customers.
Samsung said Samsung Electronics, Woori and Tencent signed the agreement at Tencent’s headquarters in Shenzhen on Oct. 26. The wallet supports both ways of scanning at checkout: customers can scan a code displayed by a merchant or show a code on their phones for the merchant to read. Samsung said the QR option works with WeChat Pay merchants across China.
At a Seoul briefing on Oct. 28, Woori said Wallet Money also supports near-field communication (NFC) payments through Mastercard’s network. Woori cited network reach of more than 150 million merchants in 210 countries. Samsung said QR codes are widely used in everyday payments in China, while the Mastercard rollout offers contactless payments abroad.
Wallet Money is prepaid and draws on a Korean bank account. DigitalToday reported that Woori told the briefing users must link an account, turn on overseas payments and can use automatic top-ups when the balance runs low. Customers still need Samsung Wallet; the service does not replace it with a separate overseas payment app. Woori said transactions use one-time credentials and encrypted data, with overseas partners receiving encrypted identifiers instead of directly identifying customer information.
Samsung says the service carries no overseas payment fee. Offline purchases earn 0.3% in Samsung Wallet Points, with no cap on accumulated points.
Samsung launched the prepaid service with Woori in South Korea in October 2025 and said Oct. 22 that it had passed three million subscribers at its first anniversary. DigitalToday reported that Woori expects the service to attract customers but does not anticipate an immediate profit contribution.
Samsung said credit-card payments through China QR codes are planned for the first quarter of 2027.
