The 4,600 Rite Aid stores will also accept Android Pay when it launches. It’s nice to see Rite Aid reverse its decision, and hopefully we’ll see other retailers that blocked Apple Pay do the same. The “tap and pay” approach is a few seconds faster than dipping a card, and is considered as fast as using a smartphone with NFC that activates a payment by bringing a phone near a payment terminal.
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Many MCX retailers have since announced plans to support Apple Pay anyway, and it’s been almost a year since MCX announced any new developments with its service.
The move to accept Apple Pay is a big win for Apple given that Rite Aid decided to block the service when it was first made available last fall.
Best Buy, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Kohl’s, all original MCX members, earlier this year announced Apple Pay support in some form.
Rite Aid is, well, right in identifying that opening up to existing wireless payment solutions is the way to go.
The transition from blocking Apple Pay services to allowing support for the service has been due to Rite Aid’s end of contract with the Merchant eXchange list and its need to establish “an easy and convenient checkout process” for its customers.
Ashley Flower, a spokeswoman for Rite Aid, told The New York Times in October that the company “does not now accept Apple Pay“, but added that Rite Aid was “still in the process of evaluating our mobile payment options”.
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“Investing in mobile technologies is just one piece of Rite Aid’s evolving digital strategy and we will continue to explore, test and implement innovate technologies that will help us better serve our valued customers”, Martindale said in the statement.
