Every other country has sorted this so it’s really down to the US banking industry to make it happen. Don’t hold your breath.
As an example, I used Apple Pay over in Australia before it was launched over there. Since almost every credit card already supported contactless, and the vast majority of terminals supported contactless, it just worked.
Walmart seem to simply be avoiding contactless altogether.
Walmart Canada has the exact same point of sale hardware and software packages and accepts contactless payments with no issue.
Walmart would rather collect your Data(tm) in the US, so that's why you're forced into their crummy QR code in-app bullshit ecosystem.
#stores Canada 402. #stores US 10585. Canada has been doing touch for years. US started not that long before covid and seemed to require signature vs pin. A whole lotta money to switch for little gain. Don’t visit all that often and not since covid, sorry.
They just have to change one global config option and re-IPL the lanes and contactless will just work.
And no, there is no such thing as "two incompatible e-pay methods", any POS terminal sold in the last 10 years has support for NFC contactless payment and it doesn't matter for terminal what exactly do you use. What matters is the agreement between merchant and bank to actually allow these methods and paying fees, look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33294877