Some Samsung Pay users have noticed that they can add their PayPal account as a payment option recently, and now PayPal is officially announcing that it has started rolling out that capability to all eligible users worldwide. Using your PayPal account to make a payment can be done at any point of sale terminal where Samsung Pay would otherwise be accepted and will earn you Samsung Rewards points. PayPal transactions are also more secure than using a bank card directly through Samsung Pay; transactions do not put reusable payment information into a retailer’s systems that can be compromised and used against you in a data breach, but instead present a single-use token that the retailer verifies through PayPal in much the same way that it would verify a normal payment through a bank. Support is still rolling out, so you may not have this feature just yet, but it is going out to all Samsung Pay users in the near future.
In order to use Samsung Pay with PayPal, you’ll only have to set things up on Samsung Pay’s end. To start the process, go into the Samsung Pay app and tap the plus icon in the upper right corner of the main user interface. You’ll see PayPal as a payment option that you can add. If One-Touch setup is enabled on your PayPal account, you’ll be able to get in quickly. Otherwise, you’ll have to enter your account credentials. From there, you’ll create a PIN for use when paying with Samsung Pay and PayPal, then choose a funding source to top-up the account, or enter one if you don’t already have one linked to your PayPal. If you make a purchase and your PayPal account is empty, it will automatically add funds from this account.
PayPal has long been usable in stores via the PayPal card, but up until now, its in-store use on mobile devices has been limited to Android Pay. That platform is still struggling to achieve full adoption, which means that customers wanting to use their PayPal account in some stores wouldn’t be able to. With this change, anybody with a compatible Samsung smartphone can use their PayPal account and any cards linked to it wherever a normal debit card would be accepted, for the most part. On both platforms, PayPal’s automatic top-up system is a convenient workaround for customers of banks and credit unions that are not on board with those payment methods just yet.