Mobile wallets

These apps may not seem like much of a threat as long as they stay in their lane — but increasingly, ride-sharing companies are pushing the limits of how their apps can be used for payments.

Uber is clearly doing more to get into payments, but is hampered by a heavy regulatory burden and self-inflicted wounds to its brand.

China’s Alipay mobile wallet is now accepted by airport retailers in the Middle East and Africa through a collaboration between Qatar Airways and Wirecard.

French supermarket chain Carrefour has launched its own mobile wallet, making Carrefour Pay available to customers as part of its plan for a complete omnichannel experience.

As new customers visit a restaurant for the first time, Punchh Acquire delivers information about the customer and assigns them with digital identities and profiles.

Alipay already has inroads in Mexico, where its mobile wallet is accepted at some retailers popular with Chinese tourists. Through a partnership with Openpay, it’s expanding Mexican merchants’ access to these transactions in person and online.

Alipay has partnered with FreedomPay and expanded an existing deal with First Data to deepen U.S. merchant acceptance at key destinations for Chinese tourists.

Retailers need to closely monitor new digital wallet trends, like Google Pay, to prioritize the most popular payment instruments to their customers during the purchase process, writes Rahul Shah, senior vice president of Global Delivery & Customer Success at Applause.

Regardless of some promising uptake numbers numbers, it’s obvious there are still many hurdles to clear before we see ubiquity, Rahul Shah of Applause writes.

One way to get a sense of Walmart’s massive transition to an agile omnichannel retailer is to examine the company’s mobile app, which bears the influence of Karla Allen, Walmart's senior director of mobile wallets.