Since the launch of Apple 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. Today, however, Walmart has announced its own mobile payment solution called Walmart Pay.
Walmart Pay will exist inside Walmart’s existing mobile application, which the company says has more than 22 million active monthly users. Much like the recently announced Chase Pay service, Walmart Pay is based on QR codes, not the tap-and-pay NFC technology like Apple Pay.
To use Walmart Pay, you have to be in a Walmart checkout lane. Then, open up the Walmart app on your phone, choose the Walmart Pay option, scan then QR code displayed on the checkout terminal, and wait for the employee to finish scanning your items. It’s a cumbersome process compared the simplicity of Apple Pay.
”The Walmart app was built to make shopping faster and easier,” said Neil Ashe, president and CEO of Walmart Global eCommerce. “Walmart Pay is the latest example – and a powerful addition – of how we are transforming the shopping experience by seamlessly connecting online, mobile and stores for the 140 million customers who shop with us weekly.”
Walmart has long supported the MCX coalition of retailers, but the MCX app CurrentC has yet to become readily available, leading many companies to abandon the platform in favor of their own solutions or Apple Pay. Regarding its commitment to MCX, Walmart senior vice president of services Daniel Eckert said the company is still very much committed to the platform, but noted that CurrentC and Walmart Pay are really different solutions.
This late in the game it’s a weird move on Walmart’s part to launch its own Walmart Pay solution instead of accepting Apple Pay and Android Pay. For the longest time, Walmart has argued that its reasoning for not supporting Apple Pay and Android Pay is to create a more centralized solution to mobile payments, but instead of doing that, it created yet another service and another app for users to worry about using when checking out.
The full press release for Walmart Pay is below:
Walmart Introduces Walmart Pay
Pay with any iOS or Android smartphone, any major payment type and at any checkout lane –
all through the Walmart app
Bentonville, Ark., Dec. 10, 2015 – Walmart knows customers want to save not just money, but also time. Today, the retailer introduced Walmart Pay – a fast, easy and secure way for customers to pay with their smartphones in Walmart stores.
Built with the goal of improving how customers check out and dramatically expanding mobile payment access, Walmart Pay is like no other mobile payments solution available today. With this launch, Walmart becomes the only retailer to offer its own payment solution that works with any iOS or Android device*, at any checkout lane, and with any major credit, debit, pre-paid or Walmart gift card – all through the Walmart mobile app. The mobile payment feature will be introduced in select stores beginning this month, with a nationwide launch to be complete by the first half of next year.
”The Walmart app was built to make shopping faster and easier,” said Neil Ashe, president and CEO of Walmart Global eCommerce. “Walmart Pay is the latest example – and a powerful addition – of how we are transforming the shopping experience by seamlessly connecting online, mobile and stores for the 140 million customers who shop with us weekly.”
Twenty two million customers actively use the Walmart app each month and it ranks among the top three retail apps in the Google and Apple app stores. The Walmart app enhances the shopping experience in Walmart stores with features including checking in to pick up an online order at a Walmart store, refilling pharmacy prescriptions and finding an item’s store location.
Open, Scan, Done – It’s That Easy
Checkout using Walmart Pay happens in three easy steps:
- Open: Visit any register, open the Walmart app and choose Walmart Pay. Activate the camera.
- Scan: At any time during checkout,simply scan the code displayed at the register. Walmart Pay is now connected.
- Done: Associate scans and bags the items… and it’s done. An eReceipt will be sent to the app and can be viewed at any time.
“The simplicity and ease of Walmart Pay comes not only from how it works, but also in how it’s been built,” said Daniel Eckert, senior vice president, services, Walmart U.S. “We made a strategic decision to design Walmart Pay to work with almost any smartphone and accept almost any payment type – even allowing for the integration of other mobile wallets in the future. The result is an innovation that will make the ease of mobile payments a reality for millions of Americans.”
To learn more about Walmart Pay, please visit news.walmart.com.
About Walmart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) helps people around the world save money and live better – anytime and anywhere – in retail stores, online, and through their mobile devices. Each week, we serve nearly 260 million customers who visit our 11,504 stores under 65 banners in 28 countries and e-commerce websites in 11 countries. With fiscal year 2015 revenue of $486 billion, Walmart employs more than 2 million associates worldwide. Walmart continues to be a leader in sustainability, corporate philanthropy and employment opportunity. Additional information about Walmart can be found by visiting http://corporate.walmart.com on Facebook at http://facebook.com/walmart and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/walmart. Online merchandise sales are available at http://www.walmart.com and http://www.samsclub.com.
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I suspect this is an attempt to squeeze every possible fraction of a cent out of every customer, either through smaller processing fees or selling or capitalizing on the customer purchase data that they do not have access to through Apple Pay.
As opposed to giving some of your profit to Apple you mean?
I see your logic. Don’t give up the day job.
Yes let’s come up wth a convoluted non-elegant, non-standard solution just so Apple doesn’t get this tiny transaction fee. Even though most other retailers are now supporting Apple Pay (and other NFC based payment solutions).
You mean the company that is fighting with the government to not build back doors in their devices?
Or how about the company that who added a ton of ad blocking to iOS 9?
As opposed to Android that not only has back doors, but also released lines of code for advertisers to get ads through iOS 9. Ya know that Google company. Go search for a xmas item your interested in and watch ads for that item appear on websites you visit for weeks!
Sorry, but it’s you who should stick with your day job.
Yeah in your day job you clearly provide services free too, so it must be a charity then (not that that’s any guarantee). Clearly you don’t take a wage so that you can pay all your overheads too? Everyone takes a profit along the line somewhere, its just about doing it in this particular case in as secure and convenient way as possible and while doing so not giving various personal information without permission to the store to whom you are giving your business and paying various moneys to. As such the customer should expect to be treated with respect surely, not to be further exploited with a monetary bonus for the seller to actually carry out this exploitation of their customers and sell it as a bonus?
Lets hear it – I will never shop at Walmart again. Oh wait, I don’t shopped there anyway. Never mind.
I think all of the above. They get shopping habit data, which is not only valuable to WalMart but it’s “partners”, and direct access to the consumer’s checking account, which bypassing transactional fees.
This is what I don’t get. Wal-mart wants CurretC because it does away with credit card transaction fee’s and accesses your banks checking account directly. That’s the #1 Point, and the other was it spies on your shopping habits even more so then just using a credit card!!! Yet is is Wal-marts own service, still using the QR Codes like CurrectC, but IS using Credit Cards!!! So they still get charged Credit Card fee’s. I really don’t get what Wal-mart is trying to do but confuse people?!?! Who would even use this, let alone CurrentC? Apple Pay is fast and a snap to use. Who wants to deal with loading in a App and dealing with QR codes? No thanks. might as well just continue using a credit card the normal way. This new way is not at all any way better.
In Walmart’s defense they have supported EMV cards for many years and had no reason to update its pos terminals this year, because their terminals already supported EMV cards.
They had no reason to switch all their pos terminals to support NFC and Apple Pay. It would cost a lot for Walmart to switch to NFC and is why they are using a barcode on their app to pay.
Using Walgreens rewards card before it supported Apple Pay I have to say scanning your phone is pretty easy. Passbook automatically opened when i walked into Walgreens and was ready to use during checkout.
If Walmart did not already support EMV cards I could see them switching to NFC enabled terminals that support Apple Pay. I think Walmart resistance is not about not paying merchant fees it is about switching over 100,000 terminals that already support EMV for one that do NFC and EMV.
NFC works with more than just Apple Pay.
I know that, just stating Walmart has supported EMV cards for years and have no motive right now to spend the money to switch all of its terminals to include NFC. Many retailers didn’t Have EMV pos terminals and have updated to ones that support both EMV and NFC.
Has anyone noticed that terrible iPhone 6 photoshop job in the first image and in the video? Got rid of the home button and replaced it with… i donno what that is…
I love how good technology always trumps powers.
Here you have a bunch of power players, and someone like Apple just side-track them all with a better tech, putting privacy and security in center instead of marketers needs. And no matter how much the big players fight it, they all lose. Good luck WM, I´ll give it 2 years before you coming begging for Apple Pay to be supported.
Well written!
There’s only ever 2 cashiers working out of 20 kiosks, yet store traffic is high and people can’t get jobs there, might wanna get that sorted out first before any of this.
The reality is retail apps are currently the most successful mobile payment apps. This is because the data that is captured can be used for better more personalised loyalty schemes and offers. Starbucks started it and at this moment in time it is undoubtedly the best model for both retailer and consumer. This set up gives rewards to the retailer and consumer wallets like ApplePay offer no real benefit as it stands hence the very slow adoption rates compared to say the Starbucks app
Few companies have the customer relationship and culture Starbucks has…WM certainly does not fit that bill. And a lot of people are already beyond sick to death of ad-targeting.
Starbucks is also soon adopting Apple Pay.
Looks like a winner. Clearly QR codes are the future.
“Clearly”? That’s a pretty bold statement considering how many banks and retailers are supporting NFC payments. And if QR codes were the future then you’d see Samsung and Google investing in QR code solutions but they’re not.
“Clearly” Apple Pay is leading the industry.
I’m also trying to figure out who this appeals to. When I think about Walmart I don’t think about incredibly astute users of technology.
Failed already. No one is going to open an app at check-out. Maybe a coupon app, but not a payment app. If your payment solution doesn’t work without unlocking the phone first, if it requires opening any app, you’ve failed. Game over.
All this seems foreign to me. I’m used to just a double-tap of the bottom button on my Apple Watch and holding it next to the POS reader. Done. Two steps done in two seconds. Note to Walmart: Target takes Apple Pay. I’ll be waiving at ya as I’m checking out at Target.
Target does not take Apple Pay yet.
Target only takes Apple Pay in its app currently. You can pick up in the store or have it shipped. They have said they plan on supporting Apple Pay after the Chip and Pin rollout and I’m hoping thats soon after the holiday shopping season. The announcement by Walmart gives them more incentive to integrate the Red Card with Apple Pay, the bank behind it is TD Bank so that should not be a problem.
Also with Walmart’s announcement, they have essentially given up on the MCX Consortium (Current C) and are going alone. There won’t be a central merchant supported exchange.
Walmart did say that their system would eventually be open to Mobile Wallets, I hope that future comes quickly.
to get gift card walmart 100 $
to enter the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKQrwqRXe8Q
Walmart is going to lose all of its intelligent, tech-savvy customers with this move.
So basically it will lose no customers.
That sucks and is kind of funny because it works out here in Canada.
overheard at a Wal*Mart “executive meeting”
Sir- We’ve been showing a lot of profit for some time now, should be raise the compensation to our employees, or invest millions into research and design of a QR based app thats not any safer than a regular card for payment that nobody will use?
LOL …
I continue to resist Walmart sounds like a Win Win to me.
Like I needed another reason not to shop at Walmart!