Walmart Enters The Mobile Payment Ring

It’s a new option within the app, and upon selecting it, you be prompted to add your credit or debit card or even a pre-paid or Walmart gift card.

If everything goes well, Wal-Mart plans to launch the payment system in all of its 4,500-plus stores nationwide by the end of the first half of 2016.

The basic features requires shoppers to first choose the Walmart pay within the retailer’s mobile app, then activate the camera. Customers can scan a QR code displayed at the register with their smartphones, instead of swiping or inserting a card at the payment terminal.

Wal-Mart said that it left the design of its payment app open so that it could work with other mobilepayment types in the future.

Walmart has thus far chosen not to support NFC-supported mobile payment systems, meaning it hasn’t yet extended a hand to Apple, Samsung and Google’s mobile payment options.

The retailer said the goal is to speed up check out time while “dramatically expanding mobile payment access”.

Walmart has become the latest addition to the increasingly crowded mobile payment marketplace. The retailer’s app launch is good news for customers, but bad news for CurrentC, an Apple Pay competitor Walmart had backed in the past.

JPMorgan Chase, meanwhile, is working on its own system for mobile payments. You associate scans and your transaction is completed; an e-reciept is delivered to your app and you can view this any time you wish. An electronic receipt will be sent to the customer via the app.

Walmart is one of the biggest supporters of the upcoming CurrentC payments platform, which has forced many retailers to opt out of Apple Pay until only recently.

The app is initially being used at stores near Walmart’s headquarters in Arkansas and will work across both Android and iOS.

“The Walmart app was built to make shopping faster and easier”, said Neil Ashe, president and CEO of Walmart Global Ecommerce in a press release. Acknowledging the crowded landscape, Eckert said Walmart Pay is designed in a way to work with other solutions and perhaps accelerate what to date has been a tepid pace of consumer adoption.

Mobile payments have been proposed for years, but Apple Pay really got things going last year when it came to paying for items with mobile devices.