Did Walmart block mobile payment, and is now selling it as an advantage???

Is it a new thing there that a contactless payment can be used?

Walmart forces its customers to use 'Walmart Pay' tied to a Walmart account in the Walmart app instead of a standard contactless payment system.

I know, that was a rhetorical question.

yes

America didn’t have widespread contactless payments until Covid started. Covid surged adoption here, but Walmart is the only big box retailer holdout left that I can think of. Walmart wants to sell your data, and that’s harder if you use emulated card numbers (contactless payments or Apple-like cards with no set number).

That's so absurdly dumb I somehow feel smarter about never going there.

I bet that Ingenico is now charging extra for terminals without contactless branding. So walmart decided they'd see if someone would pay to be the first instead of walmart paying to cover up the branding.