On the morning of June 2, 2025, Samsung Pay, the widely used mobile payment system embedded in Galaxy smartphones, experienced a nationwide service disruption that lasted for over three hours, causing significant inconvenience to millions of users across South Korea. The error, which began around 7:00 AM and persisted until approximately 10:30 AM, primarily affected authentication processes, including fingerprint recognition and password verification, preventing users from completing payments through the app.
Samsung Pay, integrated into the Samsung Wallet platform since March 2024, is a cornerstone of digital payments for many Koreans. According to a 2024 survey by Korea Gallup, about 69% of Korean adults use Samsung Galaxy S series phones equipped with Samsung Pay, amounting to roughly 17 million users nationwide. The service has facilitated transactions totaling over 300 trillion Korean Won, underscoring its critical role in everyday commerce.
During the outage, users attempting to authenticate payments were met with error messages such as "Cannot connect to (corresponding) card server. Please try again later," or "Samsung Wallet is unavailable, please try again later," effectively halting the payment process. Despite these widespread issues, some users managed to complete transactions successfully, and linked services like Naver Pay integrated with Samsung Pay continued to operate normally. This discrepancy led industry experts and insiders to suspect that the root cause was a server malfunction within the Samsung Wallet infrastructure rather than hardware or individual device problems.
The disruption quickly sparked a wave of complaints on social media and online communities. Users shared stories of frustration, with some reporting they had left home without physical cards and were unable to pay at convenience stores or during their morning commutes. One user lamented, "I went out without my card and ended up stranded because Samsung Pay wouldn't authenticate my fingerprint." Another advised fellow users to always carry a physical card as a backup, given the unpredictability of such technical failures.
Samsung Electronics responded promptly, with the Samsung Wallet operations team issuing a notice at 9:09 AM acknowledging the payment errors and assuring customers that efforts were underway to restore normal service. By 10:22 AM, the company announced that the service had been fully restored and apologized for the inconvenience caused. In a statement, a Samsung Electronics representative said, "Intermittent payment errors occurred but all issues are now resolved, and normal usage is possible. We are currently identifying the exact cause of the error and will strive to prevent recurrence." The company emphasized that the problem was not related to users' smartphones or payment terminals but was isolated to server-side issues within Samsung Wallet.
This incident was not Samsung Pay's first recent technical hiccup. On May 16, 2025, the service experienced a brief network equipment failure that triggered payment errors, though that disruption was resolved swiftly within about three minutes. The current outage, lasting over three hours, marks a more significant interruption and has raised questions about the resilience and reliability of Samsung's mobile payment infrastructure.
Samsung Pay, launched in March 2015, was the world's first mobile payment service to support both Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) and Near Field Communication (NFC), enabling seamless payments at both offline and online merchants. Its integration into Samsung Wallet in 2024 expanded its functionality to include digital keys, tickets, boarding passes, and mobile IDs, making it a comprehensive digital wallet solution for millions of users.
Industry analysts note that while Samsung Pay's broad adoption reflects South Korea's advanced digital payment ecosystem, the recent outage highlights the vulnerabilities that come with centralizing multiple digital services on one platform. The fact that linked payment services such as Naver Pay continued to function during the disruption suggests that Samsung Wallet's server issues were narrowly scoped but nonetheless impactful.
For consumers, the outage serves as a reminder of the importance of having alternative payment methods on hand, especially as reliance on mobile wallets grows. The surge in complaints across social media platforms indicates that many users were caught off guard by the sudden inability to authenticate payments, affecting daily routines and purchases.
Samsung Electronics has pledged to thoroughly investigate the cause of the outage and implement measures to prevent similar incidents in the future. As digital payments continue to replace cash and physical cards, the reliability of such systems remains paramount to maintaining consumer trust and the smooth functioning of everyday transactions.
In the meantime, users are advised to keep physical payment cards accessible and remain vigilant for updates from Samsung regarding any further service issues. The company’s rapid response and transparency in communication during the incident have been welcomed, though many will be watching closely to see how Samsung addresses the underlying technical challenges exposed by this disruption.
The Samsung Pay outage on June 2, 2025, underscores both the convenience and fragility of modern digital payment systems, reflecting a broader trend in which technology companies must balance innovation with robust infrastructure to meet the demands of millions of users who increasingly depend on their services for daily life.
