Target Concedes Support to mPayment Rivals

Apple is not alone in gaining support for its mobile payments platform from Target: The major US retailer has announced that it’s also preparing to enable support for Google Pay and Samsung Pay.

Apple announced its support yesterday, marking something of a breakthrough in its efforts to gain support among US merchants. Target was one of the founders of CurrentC, a mobile payments platform that had been aimed at directly challenging Apple Pay when the system was first coming onto the payments scene. While CurrentC never really got off the ground, there remained a palpable hostility toward Apple and its peers from the retailers that had been involved with it.

With that in mind, it’s worth noting that in announcing its plans to support Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay, Target did not offer a launch date for the support or a timeline. The announcement also highlighted the Wallet feature of the Target App, which is itself a mobile payments platform that can still be used at the checkout.

Still, Target’s purported support for the three major mobile payments platforms is a positive sign for the nascent mPayments industry in general, which is gradually gaining traction in the broader payments market.

Sources: Android Authority, 9to5Google, Target