Best Buy has been an Apple Pay holdout as more and more U.S. retailers have fallen behind Apple’s pay-with-a-phone technology. But on Monday, the Richfield-based retailer said it will now support Apple Pay for online as well as in-store paments.
Best Buy this week is adding Apple Pay to its Apple iOS mobile app, which will allow customers to consummate purchases on the retailer’s site with a tap of an iPhone or iPad fingerprint sensor.
Best Buy becomes the second major Twin Cities-based retail chain to support Apple’s phone payment for online transactions via an app. Minneapolis-based Target Corp. last year added Apple Pay to its flagship iOS app.
Best Buy on Monday released an app upgrade incorporating Apple’s payment system. While the app is customized for iPhone use, it should work on Apple iPad tablets that have Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint sensor.
The retailer also said it will roll out Apple Pay in its brick-and-mortar stores by later this year. This involves installing wireless “near field communication” terminals that accept payments when compatible phones are tapped against them.
Such an in-store payment system works with Google Android phones as well as Apple handsets, along with the new Apple Watch. This is allowing more and more smartphone owners to make payments at a growing number of retail outlets and vending machines with NFC hardware installed.
The phone-payment landscape is highly fragmented, however.
Best Buy has also backed a phone-payment system called CurrentC, which was due to be deployed this year, but the retailer isn’t being specific about its plans for the technology.
CurrentC creator Merchant Customer Exchange has been controversial for forbidding its retailer members from also providing NFC, leading companies such as CVS and Rite Aid to deactivate NFC terminals that were already installed and operational in their stores.
Merchant Customer Exchange recently appeared to soften its stance, but Best Buy’s Apple Pay announcements Monday represents a major defection from MCX’s closed ranks. Other CurrentC supporters include Sears, Target and Walmart, which has been largely responsible for pushing the tech.
Brooklyn Center-based Caribou Coffee and Minneapolis-based Dunn Bros. Coffee are going their own way in regards to phone-based payments.
Caribou earlier this month released all-new iOS and Android apps with built-in phone-payment features. Dunn Bros. is relying on a phone-payment system from Boston-based LevelUp, with cutomized iOS and Android apps incorporating its technology.
Both systems, along with CurrentC, rely on scannable codes instead of NFC wireless tech.
Julio Ojeda-Zapata writes about technology. Find him at ojezap.com.
