Apple Pay launched last week with widespread support at over 220,000 stores in the United States, although Walmart alongside CVS and Rite Aid are among some of the high-profile retailers that have not embraced the new mobile payments service. Now, Walmart has provided official comment as to why it doesn’t accept Apple Pay at its stores.

Walmart told Business Insider in an emailed statement that it is focusing its efforts on developing a payment option that is widely accepted, secure and developed in the best interests of customers in mind — which sounds a whole lot like Apple Pay.

Instead, the largest retailer in the United States is maintaining its allegiance to Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX)’s QR code-based payments solution called CurrentC. MCX is a consortium of U.S. retail companies, which also includes Best Buy, Target, Sears and Publix, that teamed together to work on a merchant-owned mobile payment system.

“There are certainly a lot of compelling technologies being developed, which is great for the mobile-commerce industry as a whole. Ultimately, what matters is that consumers have a payment option that is widely accepted, secure and developed with their best interests in mind. MCX member merchants already collectively serve a majority of Americans every day. MCX’s members believe merchants are in the best position to provide a mobile solution because of their deep insights into their customers’ shopping and buying experiences.”

CVS and Rite Aid are two other retailers that recently blocked NFC-based payments including Apple Pay because of their contractual agreements to use CurrentC, which has been in development since 2012. Nevertheless, Apple recently commented that its Apple Pay launch has been overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic.

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