Walmart To Finally Start Accepting Apple Pay and Google Pay (techcrunch.com)
- Reference: 0185086268
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/08/21/1525227/walmart-to-finally-start-accepting-apple-pay-and-google-pay
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/21/walmart-to-finally-start-accepting-apple-pay-and-google-pay/
> The news is a surprise, as Walmart has long refused to adopt the ubiquitous payment technology to instead promote its own in-house solutions, like Walmart Pay and Scan-and-Go. In years past, Walmart even teamed up with other big retailers in an attempt to take down Apple Pay entirely with an alternative mobile payment system of their own, called CurrentC. The effort failed and was shut down back in 2016.
>
> All the while, Walmart customers have begged the company to support modern tap-and-pay technology, like Apple Pay, which is now accepted at 85% of retailers across the U.S., including most larger stores.
>
> For Walmart, the decision reads as a defeat. As one of the world's largest retailers, it believed it could push customers to its own payment solutions despite the growing adoption of Apple Pay and others of its kind. Ultimately, it had to admit that it was disadvantaging its own customers in the process.
[1] https://corporate.walmart.com/news/2026/08/21/more-ways-to-pay-tap-to-pay-is-coming-to-walmart-and-sams-club
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/21/walmart-to-finally-start-accepting-apple-pay-and-google-pay/
Can't you already pay with the app? (Score:2)
Aren't these redundant since you can pay with their app? You're only serving people who don't regularly shop at the store. I have never heard of a WalMart near public transportation, so you already need your driver's license in most states, so you probably. have to have your wallet. Also, I've never seen a convenient WalMart. It's not like CVS or 7-11 where you quickly drop in for 1 item you forgot. It's hard to get in and out of one in less than 10 minutes. I happen to be one of those guys who never
Re: (Score:2)
> "They SUCK in my area...mediocre prices and every store is a horror show of damaged shitty merchandise thrown all over the place, flicking lights, and poorly maintained everything."
My nearest Walmart, which I frequent, has on-part or lower prices on most goods than anywhere else, and it really not dirty or overly disorganized. And no problems with lighting. My problems are:
1) They are *ALWAYS* out of SOMETHING I need. Often it is several items on my list. And often it is something basic like eggs, d
Re: (Score:3)
WTF is OP smoking? Walmarts won't go near major cities? Theres literally probably a dozen full on walmarts and several walmart neighborhood markets in my city. And thank god they started limiting item counts at self checkout. They should have always been limited to 10-15 items. No more than you can carry in a hand basket. It's infuriating when you have 1 or a couple items and you're stuck waiting behind someone who's purchasing a heaping cart full prepping for the apocalypse. And watching them figure out h
Re: (Score:2)
Target is 15 item self check now too. Neither enforce it.
Re: (Score:2)
> 3) They never have enough checkout lanes open, so are always INCREDIBLY slow.
Between our local stores, I have checkout issues are Target FAR MORE than I do at Walmart. My biggest issue at one of our Walmarts is that I always prefer self-checkout but they sometimes only open one set of 4 kiosks, which generates a line of 4-5 people at a time. I'm sure there are registers open somewhere, but I'll take a minute or two of pain over wandering to find an open staffed register most days.
Our Target is a complete clusterfuck for checkout (and it's not even a big city or anything). There are
Re: (Score:2)
I prefer self-checkout, if the self-checkout is done correctly, but often have "too many items" to use it. Ultimately, I don't care if it is self-checkout or not. I just want to get the F out of the store without waiting forever.
My Target is always TREMENDOUSLY faster than my Walmart. Always. Target has many more open checkouts and with fewer people in each, and moves much faster. They have fewer self-checkouts than Walmart, but at Walmart, there is often a queue 10+ deep just to get into the self-chec
Re: (Score:2)
", so you already need your driver's license in most states, so you probably. have to have your wallet. "
Uhm my drivers license is also on my phone.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, you can use their app to pay. It sucks though.
For one, my watch can tap to pay, but not with walmart app.
For walmart, I have to open the app, wait for it to load, sometimes it randomly decides I need to "prove I'm a human", then as I'm trying to go to pay, it pops up a "you want walmart+ now!" and the "yes" button is close to where I would have tapped so I can imagine they get accidental accepts. Then finally I click and it opens the camera app to scan the qr code, which is an annoying approach in ge
Re: (Score:2)
1) Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you should. Not everybody wants to install the Walmart app on their phone. 2) If you think only people who drive to Walmart shop there, and there are no Walmart's anywhere near public transport I have no idea what planet you are on, but it isn't planet Earth.
American issue, not Walmart specific (Score:2)
I believe apple pay has been available in Walmart Canadian stores for a long time. Tap to pay is pretty much everywhere.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Tap-to-pay (aka Interac Flash) has been available in Canadian Wal-Mart stores for over a decade. Whether that's done via a debit/credit card, Google Wallet, Samsung Wallet, or Apple Wallet is irrelevant as they all use the same tech.
Once again, the backwater known as the US banking industry is decades behind the rest of the world.
Re: (Score:3)
This is not a baking industry issue, it's a Walmart issue.
Re: (Score:2)
How is it a Walmart issue if Walmart in Canada has accepted tap with Google Pay for multiple years?
Re: (Score:2)
Because Walmart in the US decided they don't want this.
Re: (Score:2)
> Tap-to-pay (aka Interac Flash) has been available in Canadian Wal-Mart stores for over a decade.
NFC payments, like Apple Pay and Google Pay, have been available in many US stores for well over a decade as well. The reported issue was indeed due to a specific decision made by Walmart.
Re: (Score:2)
Your subject line, "American issue, not Walmart specific", is completely wrong.
I've been able to use Apple Pay / NFC payments here in America for a long time at a lot of stores - my local hardware store, my pharmacy, both of my local grocery stores. But some specific stores - Walmart and Home Depot come to mind - made a deliberate choice (in the U.S. at least) to try and push their own payment "app" rather than adopt the standard NFC payment system. The main driver for this appears to have been they did not
lets not forget (Score:2, Insightful)
apple pay is also more secure so they were actively reducing customer financial security
Re: (Score:2)
And the India system is about to introduce transaction fees, welcome to banker greed just like the US.
They were never going to win this one (Score:5, Insightful)
You could use ApplePay everywhere but Walmart, or you could use "WalmartPay" at walmart and only walmart. There was zero incentive to set that up when you could just dig out the physical card if you happened to find yourself in a walmart.
Re: (Score:2)
Your bank is most likely running decades old proprietary code from the most proprietary company of all, IBM.
Not a FOSS answer but ... (Score:2)
... if you're just trying to reduce or eliminate the Mountain View Monster from your life then Samsung Pay is the non Apple/Google solution I'm aware of in the USA. But I've yet to see a Samsung phone stripped of all Google tech. Certainly not FOSS. I don't think there's a FOSS "NFC Wallet" app there yet.
Re: (Score:3)
> I've never seen a NFC payment app on F-Droid.
There's no such thing as a NFC payment app. There's a bank payment app, Apple is acting like a bank. Google is acting like a bank. No one here is storing credit cards on their phone so you won't ever see an "open source NFC payment app".
> Obviously I'm not going to trust my banking information to any proprietary software.
The proprietary software is literally that of your bank's. If you don't trust their software I suggest you empty your bank account and stuff cash in pillowcases.
> Is there a way to tap to pay with an Android phone that doesn't have any Google apps on it?
Yes. If your bank supports it. It used to be that my bank's own app ran the NFC payment. These days they outsource
Re: (Score:2)
Samsung Pay doesn't involve Samsung acting as a bank. They only act as an intermediary for storing "virtual payment cards" in the security module on your phone. There's some standard interface between Samsung's servers and the financial institutions to facilitate adding cards and sending transaction notifications to the phones. I though Apple Pay could work the same way. It wouldn't surprise me if Google Wallet requires the payment to actually go through them, since they want to put their noses in every
Don't confuse "tap to pay" (Score:5, Insightful)
> "After years of refusing to adopt tap-to-pay technology in its stores, retail giant Walmart announced today that it is finally accepting payments via both Apple Pay and Google Pay. "
The definition of "tap to pay" is not Google Pay and Apple Pay (or Samsung Pay or whatever). It is touching the reader with ANY device, including a physical credit card, and have it contactlessly and quickly completing the transaction.
All the Walmarts around here don't allow you to "tap to pay" with anything; INCLUDING real physical credit cards. You have to insert the card and stand there, waiting, and waiting, and waiting. And in my case, 25% of the time, it fails and I have to try again. Every other merchant I can think of uses tap to pay with cards, except Walmart. And I don't believe that ability would cost more than inserting the same exact card into a reader.
[1]https://www.savingadvice.com/a... [savingadvice.com]
The consensus seems to be that Walmart just wants to make using credit cards as inconvenient as realistically possible, in the hopes customers will just use their app or whatever.
[1] https://www.savingadvice.com/articles/2026/04/27/10169410_the-real-reason-walmart-refuses-tap-payments.html
Contactless credit card payments (Score:5, Interesting)
Does this mean they will finally enable contactless credit cards on their POS terminals? They've refused to do it for years, requiring people to insert the chip into the reader, as an attempt to push people into using the Walmart app for payments.
Drives me fucking insane. Half the terminals have screwed up chip contacts in them requiring gymnastics to get it to read the chip and it's so much slower than contactless processing. I've started intentionally failing the chip read twice so I can just swipe my card instead. Pretty sure it costs Walmart extra processing fees and is actually faster.
Contactless credit card payments at Walmart (Score:3)
The backstory. Walmart refuses to accept contactless payments because contactless payments are more secure, and your name and credit card info does not show up to be harvested when you use a contactless payment. They want your name an credit card info for their mountain of data they harvest.
If any group tried to lobby congress to phase out contact payments and instead require contactless payments, Walmart's lobbyists would be on members of Congress riding them hard to kill such a bill.
If they eventually did
Re: (Score:2)
Oh and one more thing. Walmart could pull a "Winco Foods" and not accept Credit Card payments at all. In my area there's a Winco Foods about 30 miles from where I live. They only take debit cards, not credit cards. They do beat Walmart's prices so whenever I'm nearby, I take advantage of that.
Re: (Score:3)
Our local Winco - where we buy the majority of our groceries - recently (finally!) installed new POS terminals that allow tap to pay, Apple Pay, etc. It's still debit-only, but that's fine.
Re: (Score:2)
> Oh and one more thing. Walmart could pull a "Winco Foods" and not accept Credit Card payments at all. In my area there's a Winco Foods about 30 miles from where I live. They only take debit cards, not credit cards. They do beat Walmart's prices so whenever I'm nearby, I take advantage of that.
Yes they could, but they'd lose out on a lot of money. Winco foods likely saw their average receipt size and realized most of their patrons could either do debit or cash. Being a grocery store, cash is likely a viable
Re: (Score:2)
> They want your name an credit card info for their mountain of data they harvest.
I hadn't even thought about this but now their resistance to enabling contactless or allowing other payment apps makes a lot more sense. Scumbags.
> Walmart could pull a "Winco Foods" and not accept Credit Card payments at all.
I like WinCo and shop there when I can (also far enough away to be a special trip). The stores sometimes have a K-Mart feel to them (poor upkeep, minimal customer support, that kind of thing) but they are very often cheaper and carry less popular products, and their deli and bulk foods offer a lot of unique stuff. Produce is usually better than Walmart but less
Re: (Score:2)
> "The backstory. Walmart refuses to accept contactless payments because [...] your name and credit card info does not show up to be harvested when you use a contactless payment. They want your name an credit card info for their mountain of data they harvest."
[1]https://www.rfidcard.com/nfc-p... [rfidcard.com]
That supports the idea if you use the tap instead of insert on a credit card, the merchant can't know who you are. Is that really true? If so, that is fantastic for privacy. And it would explain resistance to the t
[1] https://www.rfidcard.com/nfc-payments-explained-what-data-is-shared-when-you-tap-to-pay/
Might return to shopping at Walmart (Score:2)
We have a Walmart just 1.2 miles from our house.
It is adjacent to the large local liquor store we frequent.
Used to shop at Walmart for certain items that are much cheaper than Safeway.
Stopped going to Walmart about a year ago as the "we don't tale ApplePay" became just too annoying. While I can save about $10 on a typical visit at Walmart vs Safeway, I was too frustrated.
Someone gets a big payday (Score:2)
Verifone, Ingenico or another payment terminal provider because I highly doubt Walmart has NFC enabled terminals already and they just have to turn them on. New terminals for every US store, RFQs were flying earlier this year I bet.
Four Way Battle Over Money (Score:3)
This is a neverending fight over money, and Walmart, and the retailer side in general, having lost the fight and throwing in the towel. Ever since contactless payments emerged, credit card companies, tech firms, banks, and retailers have been in a massive battle over the hundreds of billions in transaction fees charged each year. Retailers learned the hard way how credit card companies have forced their way in, essentially harvesting up to 1.5%-3.5% per transaction. When they saw tech firms like Apple and Google also working their way in, essentially adding another 1-2% into those transaction fees, they tried everything they could to push consumers in a different direction. Unfortunately, retailers just couldn't put together a decent alternative, and Walmart giving up on their sad app signals their surrender.
I tap to pay all the time! (Score:2)
I was at Walmart yesterday, the 21st of August 2026, and I used Google Wallet to tap my debit card. Maybe this is a US thing, I've been taping my phone to pay at Walmart for at least a year, if not longer.
Better late than never (Score:4, Interesting)
We've all seen this repeated countless times in history. Resisting the customer demand/preference ALWAYS lands in hot water. I've become so used to mobile payments and since it has become available virtually everywhere, I no longer bring my wallet with me. Once I went grocery at WMT and didn't bring my wallet like usual. I was dumbfounded when I realized the issue. If my wife didn't register a WMT account on her phone, I would have left the cart and gone home empty handed. I think WMT has realized countless cases like me and decided to do the right thing.
Re: Better late than never (Score:1)
I'm not sure I like the idea of Google, never mind Apple (or even worse, Samsung) skimming off the top of every single purchase I make. And in this case, even if they don't, even the cash purchases inevitably take a hit, effectively subsidizing these companies where they're not even involved.
We're literally adding yet another payment middle man in a place where we already have several. Anybody who has ever had a credit card merchant account will understand what I'm talking about.
Re: (Score:2)
> I'm not sure I like the idea of Google, never mind Apple (or even worse, Samsung) skimming off the top of every single purchase I make.
On the other hand, the fraud losses are a lot lower, and as far as I know the transaction fee is the same, and the credit card company pays the 0.15% fee out of their cut. So while it theoretically *could* eventually drive up the rate in the future, I don't think that's happening currently.