Walmart is ending one of the longest-running holdouts against mainstream contactless payments in U.S. retail, beginning a rollout of Tap to Pay at select Walmart and Sam’s Club locations on Aug. 24.
The retailer plans to bring the technology to all of its U.S. stores and clubs by the end of 2026, followed by Walmart and Sam’s Club fuel stations by mid-2027. Customers will be able to pay by tapping eligible contactless cards, smartphones or smartwatches at checkout. Apple Pay and Google Pay will be among the supported mobile-payment options.
The change is unusually late for a retailer of Walmart’s size. Apple says Apple Pay is already accepted at more than 85% of U.S. retailers, while contactless card terminals have become commonplace across supermarkets, restaurants, pharmacies and other large retail chains.
Walmart’s scale makes the decision particularly notable. As of July 31, the company had 5,217 U.S. retail units, including 3,569 Supercenters, 351 discount stores, 674 Neighborhood Markets and 602 Sam’s Club locations. Walmart says its stores and clubs are within 10 miles of about 90% of the U.S. population.
Customers will not be forced to abandon Walmart’s existing payment products. Cash, conventional card payments and Walmart Pay will continue to be available, while Sam’s Club members can still use Scan & Go, which lets shoppers scan merchandise and pay through the app without going through a conventional checkout lane.
The decision brings an end to a strategy dating back more than a decade.
Walmart was among the retailers behind Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, a consortium created in 2012 that included companies such as Target, Best Buy and CVS. The group developed CurrentC, a QR-code mobile wallet that was supposed to give retailers their own alternative to services such as Apple Pay and reduce their reliance on established card-payment systems.
CurrentC never became a mainstream competitor. MCX postponed its nationwide launch in 2016 after running a pilot program, while several participating retailers pursued their own payment strategies.
Walmart had already begun going its own way by then. It introduced Walmart Pay in December 2015 and completed a nationwide rollout in July 2016 across more than 4,600 stores. Rather than relying on near-field communication, or NFC, customers opened the Walmart app and scanned a QR code displayed at checkout.
That system offered Walmart something Apple Pay could not: a payment experience built directly into Walmart’s own app. The retailer could tie checkout more closely to digital receipts and other services while encouraging customers to remain inside its own digital ecosystem.
A decade later, Walmart is no longer treating outside digital wallets as something it needs to keep away from its terminals.
“It all comes back to giving customers and members more choice and making everyday shopping a little easier,” Walmart said when announcing the new payment options.
The rollout also connects with Walmart’s much broader push into consumer financial services.
OnePay, the fintech backed by Walmart and Ribbit Capital, already offers banking, savings, credit, installment loans, peer-to-peer payments and other financial products. On the same day Walmart announced Tap to Pay, OnePay said holders of its CashRewards Card could add the card to Apple Wallet and use Apple Pay, including at participating Walmart locations. Support for its Builder Card is due later this fall.
Rather than replacing Walmart’s own financial ecosystem, contactless payments are therefore being added alongside it.
Why Walmart Finally Decided the Fight Wasn’t Worth It
What makes Walmart’s decision interesting is not the technology. Tap to Pay has been ordinary for years. The interesting part is that Walmart spent so long believing it could persuade customers to pay differently — and has now accepted that convenience matters more.
There was logic behind the old strategy. When a retailer has Walmart’s size, payments are not merely the final five seconds of a transaction. They involve processing costs, customer information, loyalty, advertising and the chance to build additional financial products around millions of shoppers.
Owning Walmart Pay gave the company a direct doorway into all of that.
The problem is that customers do not necessarily want every retailer to have its own way of paying.
Someone who already keeps cards in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet can use the same familiar action at a coffee shop, grocery store, pharmacy or airport. Asking that person to open a separate retailer app, find Walmart Pay and scan a QR code adds friction to a transaction that can otherwise take seconds.
That difference becomes harder to defend as contactless payment becomes the default behavior rather than a niche feature.
Walmart also has less reason today to treat Apple Pay or Google Pay as a threat to its wider financial ambitions. Its ecosystem has become much bigger than Walmart Pay.
OnePay gives Walmart access to a far broader financial-services relationship, including cards, savings, lending and installment payments. Walmart also has its Walmart+ membership business, a huge e-commerce operation and an expanding advertising business built around knowledge of what customers buy.
A shopper tapping an iPhone at the register therefore does not suddenly become invisible to Walmart. The retailer still knows what was purchased at its store, and customers who use Walmart accounts, Walmart+, online ordering or other company services can remain deeply connected to its ecosystem.
There is also a simple commercial calculation. Refusing a payment method that shoppers already expect can create annoyance without producing enough additional Walmart Pay adoption to justify that annoyance.
The timing matters as well. Walmart is putting increasing effort into making physical stores and digital commerce work as one system. U.S. e-commerce sales grew 24% in its latest quarter, while store-to-door delivery also expanded rapidly. A checkout experience that feels noticeably less modern than the rest of that operation had become an odd exception.
So Walmart is not surrendering its payments ambitions. It is changing how it competes.
Instead of requiring customers to use Walmart’s payment method, it can let them use Apple Pay, Google Pay or a contactless card while trying to win their financial business through OnePay, rewards, credit products and services that offer an actual reason to stay within Walmart’s ecosystem.
That may ultimately be a stronger strategy than trying to control the tap itself.