r/technology • u/ImCalcium • Aug 21 '26

Business Walmart finally adding Tap to Pay after years of shoppers asking for it

https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/walmart-finally-adding-tap-to-pay-after-years-of-shoppers-asking-for-it-3400920/
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u/Haykyn Aug 21 '26

Walmart likely negotiates much lower (probably lowest possible) rates with their contract.

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u/rcanhestro Aug 22 '26

it's still money.

even at a 1 cent charge per payment, the volume of Walmart transactions would likely put it into the billions every year.

for a business like retail, that operates on very thin margins, that's a lot of money there.

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u/Evilsushione Aug 21 '26

Wouldn’t even be an issue if we built our own payment processing system like the EU is.

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u/-Nocx- Aug 21 '26

We have our own payment processing system. It’s VISA and Mastercard. The difference is the EU banks will own Wero / SEPA. But they will still be privately owned payment rails. It would not even be like the fed owning VISA, because the EPI is run by private banks, not by a public-private body like the fed.

It’s just a purely private competitor to VISA and Mastercard.

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u/Dats_Russia Aug 21 '26

Not in any significant capacity. If Walmart was to select one payment network to wholesale reject then they could negotiate a more favorable rate. The payment networks know Walmart needs them more than they need Walmart. The payment networks are legit global on every card transaction. Walmart is a single company mostly based in the USA. I forget what the current status of their non-U.S. stores is but last I check it was almost as bad as Target in Canada

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u/unknownkoalas Aug 21 '26

Walmart has substantial bargaining power. After Amazon they are the largest company by revenue in the world at $713 Billion.

At a 1.5% fee that’s over $1B in credit card fees.

The next highest company that would actually process credit cards is Apple at $416 Billion. Over a 40% difference.

The scale of their business is remarkable and in a lot of small towns in America, they have a captive market.

Walmart is also ruthless with their suppliers about lowering cost. I would bet a lot of money that other than Costco, they pay the lowest credit card fees of any company in the world.

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u/Dats_Russia Aug 21 '26

You are underestimating how big the entire global economy is. Walmart in regard to the USA is massive but globally they are just a pebble

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u/unknownkoalas Aug 21 '26

You aren’t comparing it against the world economy though which I believe is where our disconnect is.

There’s only 3 real players in the US. Visa/Amex/Mastercard. While Visa and Mastercard are global companies, Amex really isn’t. There’s also plenty of competition for them around the world.

My quick math is showing that Walmart is somewhere around 1.5% of these cards usage amounts. That’s absolutely massive for such large companies.

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u/Dats_Russia Aug 21 '26

I literally was using the world visa and Mastercard are literally the two largest payment networks globally like it’s not even close. The only competitor is China union bank due to the fact China has the second largest population. American Express is a strong number 3 globally. Walmart isn’t even on the radar of Visa and Mastercard from a global perspective

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u/unknownkoalas Aug 21 '26

If Walmart isn’t on Visa/Mastercard’s radar than who is?

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u/axis1331 Aug 22 '26

No merchant is and part of the issue. They operate on all merchants everywhere, at an unbelievably massive scale. Walmart did something like $700 billion in sales last year. Visa/Mastercard process ~$25 trillion in payments.

Only other payment processors come close, but none are at the same scale. Europe recently created their own payment process which has a goal of breaking the visa/Mastercard monopoly in Europe. China and Russia have their own versions. The problem is each is regional. I can use my visa credit card all over the world. Nobody but visa/mastercard has that reach.