The report didn’t give many details on how the wallet would work, but it did indicate that Target TGT -1.33 % would likely be using barcode scanning technology to allow consumers to pay with the wallet at a terminal. This is the same technology that Walmart and Starbucks both use in their respective wallets.
Walmart’s WMT -0.22 % new payment service requires users to upload a credit card number into a mobile wallet. When checking out at the store, the app will create a QR code, or a digital barcode, that can be scanned at the cash register.
Similar to Walmart, Target decided not to accept Apple’s mobile payments technology, Apple Pay AAPL -2.55 %. Walmart and Target instead joined the Merchant Customer Exchange, a partnership of major store and restaurant chains, with ambitions of creating an Apple Pay rival. But MCX has stumbled and only started testing its service, called CurrentC, in the past few months.
Target would join a long list of companies pushing into in-store mobile payments including Walmart, Apple, Samsung, Google, and PayPal. These companies are clamoring to take a stake in a potentially huge mobile payments market, which is expected to handle USD 142 billion in transactions by 2019, according to Forrester Research.
Another opportunity for Target is to integrate its RED loyalty program into the wallet.
One source said that Target’s mobile wallet is still very early in development and the company is looking at a number of in-store payments services.
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