A new addition to the epidemic of mobile wallets, Walmart Pay, appeared on Walmart’s app in an update for iOS last week.
The feature will be available “in all stores soon,” according to the company, but it’s not clear exactly when. It is also not clear from the update if the service will operate outside of the point of sale, for example, on Walmart.com or for in-app mobile purchases. On the app update, which was released last Wednesday, Walmart announced:
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In-store returns are easier than ever.
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Quickly add paper receipts to your history.
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Use Walmart Pay (available in all stores soon) and get receipts stored automatically.
Walmart Pay will communicate with point-of-sale via QR code, using cards stored in Walmart.com. The retail giant first announced the launch of its mobile wallet in December 2015, casting the Walmart-MCX alliance in doubt. The company still does not accept Apple Pay or Android Pay in stores.
Walmart’s app has some 22 million users, the company said in December, and 75% of its users own smartphones. Walmart Pay joins the ever-growing list of mobile payment platforms, such as Chase Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, and Apple Pay.
Once it rolls out, the mobile wallet will face high customer expectations, said Jim Hirschauer, senior manager at AppDynamics, a startup that provides application performance management and analytics in the application intelligence sector.
“In our mobile age of instant gratification, if user is experiencing sub-optimal service, they will jump off to the wealth of the competitors,” he told Bank Innovation. “For Walmart, the payment wallet is also a great way to gather a wealth of data on users and run a lot of analytics on things like payments size or user behavior.”
While many banks shy away from adopting new payments technologies, Hirschauer added, “companies like Walmart, Starbucks, or Acorn are all finding niches to enter into this market.”
Here’s a quick video Walmart released to introduce its wallet: