BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Walmart knows customers want to save not just money but also time. To meet that customer need, the retailer has introduced Walmart Pay — “a fast, easy and secure way for customers to pay with their smartphones in Walmart stores.”

Built with the goal of improving how customers check out and dramatically expanding mobile payment access, Walmart Pay is like no other mobile payments solution available today, according to the company.

With this launch, Walmart becomes the only retailer to offer its own payment solution that works with any iOS or Android device, the company claims, at any checkout lane, and with any major credit, debit, prepaid or Walmart gift card, all through the Walmart mobile app. The mobile payment feature was introduced in selected stores in December, and the nationwide launch will be complete, Walmart says, by the first half of next year.

“The Walmart app was built to make shopping faster and easier,” said Neil Ashe, president and chief executive officer of Walmart Global eCommerce. “Walmart Pay is the latest example — and a powerful addition — of how we are transforming the shopping experience by seamlessly connecting online, mobile and stores for the 140 million customers who shop with us weekly.”

Twenty-two million customers actively use the Walmart app each month, according to the company, and it ranks among the top three retail apps in the Google and Apple app stores. The Walmart app enhances the shopping experience in Walmart stores with features including checking in to pick up an online order at a Walmart store, refilling pharmacy prescriptions and finding an item’s store location.

Checkout using Walmart Pay happens in three steps:

• Open — Visit any register, open the Walmart app and choose Walmart Pay. Activate the camera.
• Scan — At any time during checkout, simply scan the code displayed at the register. Walmart Pay is now connected.
• Done — Associate scans and bags the items. And it’s done. An eReceipt will be sent to the app and can be viewed at any time.

“The simplicity and ease of Walmart Pay comes not only from how it works, but also in how it’s been built,” said Daniel Eckert, senior vice president of services at Walmart U.S. “We made a strategic decision to design Walmart Pay to work with almost any smartphone and accept almost any payment type, even allowing for the integration of other mobile wallets in the future. The result is an innovation that will make the ease of mobile payments a reality for millions of Americans.”

Walmart, however, is not the only major retailer taking advantage of the latest technology. Target Corp. is said to be in the early stages of developing its own mobile wallet.

Though Target — the nation’s fourth-largest retailer — hasn’t confirmed any such launch, it’s been reported that the Target mobile wallet could become available as early as next year.