Samsung Pay adds PayPal as a payment method while PayPal's Braintree merchants can now add Samsung Pay as a checkout option in US
Samsung Pay will soon accept PayPal as a payment method in addition to bank accounts, credit cards, and gift cards. It's a tiny update that could be useful …
Context & Ripple Effects
PayPal has spent the past two years distributing its wallet across rival platforms rather than fighting them: it put PayPal inside Samsung Pay on TV for app and game purchases back in 2015, and just months before this announcement it struck a parallel deal with Google via the Android Pay partnership. The new arrangement closes the loop on both sides of PayPal's business — consumers get PayPal as a funding source inside Samsung Pay, while merchants on Braintree, PayPal's own gateway, can switch on Samsung Pay at checkout.
For Samsung, this extends a stated push beyond tap-to-pay: it had already signaled plans for online checkout with Samsung Pay and broader features like coupons and in-app purchases, and Braintree gives it merchant-side distribution without signing retailers one by one.
First-order effects
- US Samsung Pay users can now fund purchases from PayPal alongside bank accounts, cards, and gift cards, and any Braintree merchant can add Samsung Pay as a US checkout option through an existing integration rather than a separate deal.
- PayPal instantly gains placement inside one of the two largest Android wallet ecosystems, matching the reach it secured with Android Pay earlier the same year.
Second-order effects
- Samsung Pay gets checkout reach on non-Samsung storefronts through Braintree's merchant base, partially offsetting Apple Pay's closed-device model with a gateway-driven acceptance strategy.
- Apple Pay, the only major US wallet without a PayPal funding option after the Android Pay and Samsung Pay deals, faces pressure to decide whether wallet-to-wallet interoperability or exclusivity is the better moat.
Third-order effects
- If wallets keep cross-listing each other's funding sources, competition shifts from device ownership to who controls the routing layer — gateways like Braintree become the distribution channel that determines which wallets shoppers actually see at checkout.
- Payment credentials becoming portable across rival wallets points toward wallets commoditizing as interfaces, with the durable value accruing to whoever holds the merchant relationship and the transaction data.
The trend: Mobile wallets are shifting from walled-garden exclusivity toward interoperable funding layers, with PayPal deliberately embedding itself inside competitors' payment apps and gateways like Braintree deciding what reaches checkout.