Walmart Pay is a mobile payment option developed by Walmart and available at its stores.
Mobile payments are becoming more and more popular nowadays. Android Pay or Apple Pay have to make room for one more competitor on the market of mobile payment systems.
Walmart, American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores and grocery stores, one of the biggest brands in the USA, has come up with its own payment solution. Thus it becomes the first retailer with its own smartphone payment service. Walmart Pay is available through the Walmart app.
Comparing to external competitors, Walmart doesn’t need to make any considerable changes to accept Walmart Pay. This obvious advantage encourages fast spread of new payment method in the stores of the chain – now it is available in 33 states with more to come in the future.
The most newly states that supported Walmart Pay are New York, California, and Washington. Interestingly that New York has always been considered to be rather skeptical about new and innovative payment solutions. It is only enough to look at bitcoin that has to follow very strict regulation rules in New York.
Walmart announced that a major rollout is scheduled before the national holiday on July 4th. The fact that it has recently added fourteen more states allows to believe the promise. Walmart Pay now takes a lead as one of the most common mobile payment solutions across major stores in all of the USA.
“The service was built to make shopping easier and faster, something we know our customers want,” Daniel Eckert, a Walmart vice president, said in a statement.
Walmart Pay is available for owners of either Android or iPhone devices. Like other mobile payment service providers, Walmart needs to sign deals with participating banks. If now this bank support is rather limited, Walmart promises to announce more banks in the nearest future.
Although entering a competitive market, Walmart underlines that Walmart Pay is not a competitor to Android Pay or Apple Pay. The thing is that Walmart Pay can not be used at third-party stores. Indeed, Walmart doesn’t need to spread its mobile payment option to other stores given how many customers shop at its stores. According to Walmart, it services more than 140 million customers a week.
The solution offered by Walmart uses QR codes for transactions. The retailer aims at further promotion of this technology. As for now, it is obvious that Walmart Pay is already used in the chain stores and has all chances to gain traction in the upcoming weeks.
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