A couple of weeks ago, Walmart announced Walmart Pay. It was rather surprising but given that Walmart was one of the larger retailers to not support Apple Pay, we suppose it should have been expected that they might have come up with an alternative. In fact for those who shop at Walmart very frequently, it almost makes more sense.
That being said, could Target be thinking of creating something similar of their own, Target Pay, maybe? According to a report from Reuters, the answer is yes. The publication has heard from people familiar with the matter that Target is expected to join the likes of Walmart in creating their own mobile payment service.
However it seems that Target has not fully committed to the idea of a mobile wallet but if and when they do, they expect that it should take place in early 2016. They have, however, decided who they want to partner with in terms of credit card companies, and might be considering using scanning technology (like QR codes) to make payments, as opposed to relying on NFC like Apple Pay.
At the same time, Target is also part of the MCX program where they are testing out the CurrentC payment service, as stated by Target spokesman Eddie Baeb in which he said, “Target is a participant of the MCX and we are testing its CurrentC mobile wallet with guests as part of a pilot in Columbus, Ohio.” However Baeb declined to comment on the rumors of Target’s own mobile payments, so until then do take it with a grain of salt.
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