Report: Target Is Considering Its Own Mobile Wallet App

It seems everywhere you turn these days, another company is offering a new way to pay with a smartphone: there’s Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, as well as Walmart’s newly announced mobile payment system, and now Target might be hopping on the bandwagon with its own mobile wallet. Any bets on whether it’ll be called “Target Pay”?

According to a new report from Reuters citing insider sources, Target is in the early stages of developing a mobile wallet.

Though the mobile wallet could launch as early as next year, the retailer isn’t committing to anything just yet, leaving things rather up in the air at this point.

So far, Target has apparently looked into partnering with credit card companies, and is said to be in favor of processing transactions using scanning technology to communicate with payment terminals, two of the sources said. No testing has happened at any Target stores at this point, however.

If this has you wondering whether the plan by many retailers — including Target and Walmart — to launch a mobile payment system called CurrentC is over and done with, a Target spokesman tells Reuters that the retailer is still an active member of the Merchant Customer Exchange in charge of developing that system, but that it’s also exploring other mobile wallet solutions.

Exclusive: Target in initial development of its own mobile wallet – sources [Reuters]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist