Rite Aid has announced that it will begin accepting Apple Pay in 4,600 stores across the U.S. beginning Saturday, August 15. From Rite Aid:
By accepting mobile payments, we're able to offer Rite Aid customers an easy and convenient checkout process, which we know is important to them. Investing in mobile technologies is just one piece of Rite Aid's evolving digital strategy and we will continue to explore, test and implement innovative technologies that will help us to better serve our valued customers
This is a reversal of Rite Aid's decision last October to disable support for Apple Pay, even at the cost of disabling all NFC payment options in the store. That likely had to do with Rite Aid's partnership with the Walmart let MCX coalition and the rival CurrentC mobile payment technology.
CurrentC was designed so that retailers could avoid paying credit card transaction fees. Apple Pay, by contrast, was designed to provide a better, more private, more secure, and more convenient shopping experience.
As CurrentC was taking a long time to deploy and Apple Pay was gaining momentum, there was speculation that, come the end of exclusivity agreements, we might see more and more MXC defections.
Rite Aid could be indication that's starting to happen now.