Wal-Mart to launch own mobile pay system

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, said it's launching its own mobile payment system that will allow shoppers to pay with any major credit or debit card or its own store gift card through its existing smartphone app at the cash register.

Wal-Mart has moved into the field as Apple's one-year-old tap-and-pay system is being expanded to other merchants like Best Buy and KFC and several months after Google launched the Android Pay mobile wallet app and Samsung came out with Samsung Pay.

The move signals that Walmart believes it's best to build its own system to better serve its customers, even as it backs a retail industrywide mobile payment program that is in test phase.

[...] Ashe and Daniel Eckert, Wal-Mart's senior vice president of services, told reporters the system is designed to integrate with other payment applications like Apple Pay — if the retailer decides to include them.

Wal-Mart's move could be a blow to Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, set up a few years ago by a consortium of retailers and restaurants to create an industrywide mobile payment system.

[...] Wal-Mart executives told reporters they remain excited about the MCX pilot program for the payment system called "CurrentC."

Mobile-payment services from Apple, Google and Samsung all rely on wireless technology called NFC.

The customer merely taps the phone next to a payment machine at the store and authorizes the purchase, usually with a fingerprint ID.

The phone can mimic the old-school magnetic signals produced by card swipes and work with most existing equipment.