Apple Pay, the Silicon Valley giant’s highly anticipated mobile wallet, has been available for only one week but already may be inciting a battle within the payments industry, Mike Isaac reports.
Over the weekend, Rite Aid and CVS disabled Apple Pay from working in their stores nationwide. The reason was not immediately clear.
Ashley Flower, a spokeswoman for Rite Aid, said the company “does not currently accept Apple Pay.” She added that Rite Aid was “still in the process of evaluating our mobile payment options.”
Representatives from CVS did not respond on Sunday to repeated telephone and email requests for comment.
Analysts said disabling acceptance of Apple Pay was a way to favor a rival system — not yet available — being developed by a consortium of merchants known as Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX. Rite Aid and CVS are part of that consortium, not part of the group of retailers that had teamed up with Apple on its payment system. Read more »