Since the launch of Android Pay, retail giant Walmart has refused to accept the mobile payment option, saying instead that it only matters that consumers have a payment option that is widely accepted.
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Wal-Mart says it will start rolling out the feature at select stores near the company’s Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters starting this month, expanding to stores nationwide “in the first half of next year”. (NYSE:WMT) announced that it has introduced Walmart Pay, a fast, easy, and much secure system for customers to make payment through their smartphones at Walmart stores. The phone’s camera is activated and scans a code displayed on the pay key pad.
As the Wall Street Journal notes, the company appears to have taken a step back from CurrentC by launching Walmart Pay, but Daniel Eckert, Walmart’s USA head of services, said Walmart still plans to work with the joint venture.
That is the millions of Americans who shop at Wal-Mart and may decide credit cards are not good enough.
Walmart’s solution to the growing number of mobile payment options: launch it’s own.
The launch of its own electronic payment system was something of a surprise since Wal-Mart is one of several major US chains involved in a partnership called MCX.
“(Walmart Pay) fits the trend of scale players in the payments ecosystem looking to control mobile payments by leveraging their content and high traffic apps”, J. P. Morgan analysts wrote in a research note.
Open: Visit any register, open the Walmart app and choose Walmart Pay. We needed a solution that offered mobile payment access to as many of our customers as possible. Walmart will send you an e-receipt when you’re all done. “It’s about how we can use payment to create a better shopping experience for our customers in our stores”.
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So what is Walmart Pay? But while it may make the checkout process faster and more convenient for customers, some question how much Walmart Pay will help the retailer’s underlying business. Working with so many demanding retail partners, all testing different capabilities of its CurrentC payment system, apparently tested Walmart’s patience.
