This is why Walmart will never accept Apple Pay

Walmart is one of several high-profile retailers that belong to MCX, a consortium of retailers that have partnered together to create their own mobile payments service called CurrentC. Due to this commitment, the big-box retailer has opted against supporting Apple Pay in its stores. A new report offers a big reason why: high credit card transaction fees.

If the debate over credit card fees isn’t the main reason some of the nation’s largest retailers are banning Apple Pay from their stores in favor of a competitor app called CurrentC, someone should tell Walmart exec Mike Cook. Execs from the consortium of retailers called MCX insisted recently that the group’s backing of CurrentC — and ban of Apple Pay — had little to do with their issues with credit card fees even though the beta version of the app doesn’t accept traditional cards. Instead, they said, MCX was creating CurrentC mainly to craft a system that combined loyalty offers and a mobile payment system in one.