In the middle of a tumultuous period, facing problems both financial and optical, Samsung is quietly plugging away at revamping its Samsung Pay system with a new local deals option.

The phone manufacturer added a few new features to its mobile payments application, expanding coverage to three new countries, integrating with more merchants and adding a local Deals section. The new feature helps consumers find nearby deals and lets them redeem those promotions in-app.

“A reported 96% of mobile users will search the web for a coupon in 2016,” said Wilson Kerr, vice president of business development and sales at Unbound Commerce. “Deals are a great way to prime the pump for mobile wallet usage.

“Smart retailers will get on board and start measuring results in the form of actual transactions.”

Mobile payments
Samsung has been having a rough month. With the controversy surrounding the safety concerns of its Galaxy Note 7 phone, which many consumers reported had been catching fire, their stock went down and the company is suffering a PR crisis.

But amid all the controversy surrounding their hardware, Samsung has been diligently working on its software side as well with a new update to its Samsung Pay mobile app.

Some of the less revolutionary parts of the update including three new countries in which the payment option is compatible, Malaysia, Russia and Thailand, as well as some new merchants who will now accept Samsung Pay at checkout.

But in bigger news, Samsung has also made two larger announcements related to its mobile payment platform.

Samsung is introducing a feature called Deals that shows consumers local deals from retailers in their area that accept Samsung Pay. Consumers can then redeem those deals instantly through the Samsung Pay app.

Secondly, Samsung is partnering with Mastercard’s Masterpass program, an interconnected network of mobile payment and retailer platforms that connects consumers with the payments and products they desire.

Consumers who use Samsung Pay can now tap into Masterpass’ larger network of retailers to make quick and easy mobile payments.

“MasterPass is the recognized leader in mobile wallet technology, so partnering to take advantage of this trust for android pay makes a lot of sense,” Mr. Kerr said. “Retailers already out already set up to except MasterCard and the stored credit card information can be instantly added to android pay.”

Software 
Samsung is counting both on the expanded reach of Samsung Pay and the increased contextualized and relevant uses for it that comes from partnering with retailers to offer local deals to help strengthen their mobile payment platform as a whole.

With their software side running strong, Samsung will be free to focus on the pressing issues on the hardware side.

“Merchant engagement is a key part of the puzzle and Deals allows specific retail locations to reach Samsung Pay users and quantify the promotion of these deals with real redemption metrics,” Mr. Kerr said.

“Location-based real-time deals have long been the holy grail of mobile marketing and mobile wallets like Masterpass that are accepted at a wide swath of merchants and on device solutions like Samsung Pay are finally making deal based mobile wallet usage a reality.”