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Walmart Entering the Mobile Payments Arena

The new system will allow customers to pay through the mobile app using credit card or debit card or even the Walmarts gift card at cash register.

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Wal-Mart Pay is launching Thursday in a few stores in Bentonville, Ark., where the retailer is headquartered, and will be expanded to all 4,600 US stores by summer, the company said.

“We made a strategic decision to design Walmart Pay to work with nearly any smartphone and accept nearly any payment type”, says Mr. Daniel Eckert, VP of services. (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.

Customers can pay for their items by opening the app, activating their phone cameras, and scanning a QR code at the checkout.

The number of tap-capable mobile payment machines in the United States is expected to surpass 1.5 million this year. The retail giant launched Walmart Pay service, which it expects to roll out across the United States by the middle of 2016.

Walmart is among a handful of retailers that have refused to support Apple Pay since its USA launch in October 2014. While Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay compete with each other, Walmart Pay isn’t going to enter their game anytime soon. “The Walmart app enhances the shopping experience in Walmart stores with features including checking in to pick up and online order at a Walmart store, refilling pharmacy prescriptions and finding an item’s store location”. The process is complete when a store employee scans and packs the purchases.

Using Walmart Pay requires three simple steps.

Although Apple now allows users to store their loyalty cards in the Apple Wallet app, Apple Pay does not have a “strong value proposition” as it can not include retailers’ loyalty programs, research firm Gartner Inc analyst Penny Gillespie said.

Walmart Pay may not draw many customers away from the use of American Express, MasterCard or Visa.

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Walmart, the largest retailer in the world, have just introduced their own payment wallet – Walmart Pay. At the end of the transaction, the app generates an eReceipt.

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