On an Apple Pay update shared during today's second quarter earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that Best Buy will begin accepting Apple Pay in its iOS app today, with full Apple Pay support coming to Best Buy stores later in 2015.
Best Buy's move to adopt Apple Pay is notable because Best Buy was previously a member of MCX, the Apple Pay competitor that's pushing the CurrentC payments service. CurrentC, which uses barcodes rather than NFC for payments, remains in testing and will launch later this year.
Best Buy follows MCX member Meijer in offering Apple Pay to customers, and while both companies signed exclusivity agreements, MCX CEO Dekkers Davidson has said that there are no penalties or fines for leaving the MCX program. MCX members are not able to accept both CurrentC and Apple Pay at the same time, so it remains unclear if Best Buy remains a part of MCX.
Apple also announced that the number of locations accepting Apple Pay has now tripled since the service first launched in October of 2014.
Update 4:10 p.m. Pacific Time: According to sources that spoke to Re/code, Best Buy won't begin accepting Apple Pay until later in 2015 because its MCX exclusivity agreements don't expire until the summer of 2015. A Best Buy spokesperson told Re/code that the company remains invested in MCX, but did not say the company will offer MCX when it launches. "We are actively monitoring their pilots. It's too early to declare whether we will take it at launch."
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