Dive Brief:
- Walmart on Monday started giving customers more ways to pay by tapping their phones, smartwatches or cards, including those in a digital wallet such as Apple Pay or Google Pay, the retailer said.
- The company is accepting the tap-to-pay payments at some Walmart and Sam’s Clubs stores initially, with plans to roll out the payment option to all of its approximately 4,600 stores in the U.S. by the end of the year, according to a Friday press release.
- Walmart will make the new payment options available at its gas stations starting in 2027.
Dive Insight:
After years of not accepting the technology, Walmart will now allow payments via Apple Pay and Google pay at its stores.
The retailer previously blocked competitor mobile wallets to promote CurrentC, a payment app developed by a consortium of retailers led by Walmart. The CurrentC effort was eventually abandoned.
Shortly after the end of CurrentC, the company developed Walmart Pay, which enables customers to purchase products with their smartphones in stores.
Now, the retailer’s new tap-to-pay options also includes Samsung Pay or Garmin Pay digital wallets, and via other wearables, according to a frequently asked questions post of the retailer.
Walmart has been at the forefront of investigating and expanding the realm of payment options for its customers, partly as a means of lowering the substantial costs it shoulders in accepting credit and debit card payments. When the retailer accepts a card for payments that isn’t a Walmart or Sam’s Club card, it must pay higher interchange fees to banks and card networks.
The company has been trying to expand payment options that would lower the cost of payments. For instance, another card that it accepts, the digital OnePay card, was created by a fintech startup that it has backed with investments. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer worked with the venture capital firm Ribbit Capital in 2021 to create the startup.
Walmart has also expanded the way its customers can pay by offering them buy now, pay later options.
Last year, the Swedish company Klarna Group partnered with the Walmart-backed fintech to offer financing at the retail giant via a digital payments app. That let Klarna muscle in on what had been exclusive territory at the retailer for San Francisco-based Affirm Holdings as the provider of BNPL installment loans.
