CVS continues Apple Pay snub, launches barcode-based 'CVS Pay'

Posted:
in iPhone edited August 2016
Nearly two years after CVS became one of the first major retailers to actively block Apple Pay at its stores, the drugstore chain on Thursday rolled out "CVS Pay," a proprietary barcode-based mobile payments and rewards system.




Dubbed a "breakthrough, end-to-end mobile payment experience," CVS Pay lets users refill prescriptions, provision credit cards for payment and manage ExtraCare loyalty rewards from the CVS Pharmacy iOS app.

Unlike Apple Pay, which relies on tokenization and secure NFC technology, CVS Pay uses an on-screen barcode to transfer sensitive account information between devices.

The app is trusted to secure credit card data, customer prescription information and ExtraCare loyalty points, all of which are communicated to compatible point of sale terminals via a single scan. Alternatively, drive-through customers can provide a special pickup number prior to paying with the universal barcode. Customers receive in-app confirmation of successful transactions, which can be referenced at a later time for record keeping purposes.

Importantly, backend verifications for prescription and payment information, like cardholder name, birthdate, signature and PIN, are completed in-app. Currently, the system supports all major credit cards, including MasterCard, Visa, Discover and American Express, as well as debit, Health Savings Account and Flexible Spending Account cards.

"Over the past year, our digital team has brought to market numerous new digital tools like CVS Pay that make shopping at CVS Pharmacy easier and more convenient," said CVS Health SVP and Chief Digital Officer Brian Tilzer. "We've been excited by the level of customer adoption of these digital solutions, and we will continue our quick pace of innovation and deployment to make our customers' health care experience even easier."

CVS Pay rolled out as a limited release in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, with nationwide availability expected later this year.

With today's release, it appears CVS has opted to invest in its own payment solution rather than adopting Apple's mobile payment platform Apple Pay. The drugstore is part of the MCX consortium, which in 2014. restricted members from adopting Apple Pay as it readied a competing platform called CurrentC. After months of delays, CurrentC effectively folded in June.

Other MCX members, including Rite-Aid and Best Buy, began accepting Apple Pay last year. Industry watchers expected CVS to follow suit, and a store in Florida was reportedly testing Apple Pay as recently as July, though the company is for now going its own way.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 93
    ibillibill Posts: 400member
    I use Walgreens instead. Sorry CVS.
    lolliverslprescottzeus423calimac_dogbdkennedy1002jfc1138pscooter63nolamacguysupadav03
  • Reply 2 of 93
    All the CVS stores in my city are list Apple Pay support on their Apple Maps listings.  No idea if it actually works though, because I never go there.
  • Reply 3 of 93
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member
    Fuck CVS, and fuck Walmart. Consumers don't want this trash. This is just contempt towards the consumers, intentionally disabling Apple Pay even though their machines support it, to push their own insecure,
    unintuitive garbage. 
    edited August 2016 calitallest skiltallguylolliverradarthekatzeus423pscooter63nolamacguyxmhillxsupadav03
  • Reply 4 of 93
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
    Fuckin* tedious.
  • Reply 5 of 93
    I have a Walgreen's and a Rite Aid close by.  I'd prefer CVS, but not if they're going to keep being dumbasses about this.
    lostkiwixmhillxlatifbpjahbladebigjbdragon
  • Reply 6 of 93
    welshdogwelshdog Posts: 1,897member
    How, um, sophisticated. :p

    latifbpsrice
  • Reply 7 of 93
    robin huberrobin huber Posts: 3,949member
    My Rx insurance requires me to use CVS, but I go to RiteAid for everything else because of CVSs ridiculous policy. Will never use this stupid system, I just pay by chip card. 
    edited August 2016 tallguylolliverlostkiwixmhillxDeelronbigjbdragon
  • Reply 8 of 93
    I loved ApplePay when it first came out. As things would happen, I was late paying my American Express bill. The card use was suspended for a few days. AP said the card could no longer be used as it was no longer valid. I waited two weeks after my card was working again and my AP still reported the card invalid. Well, darn. I sure don't need to fiddle with my phone when my credit card is right here in my hand. 

    Apple is is making money with Apple Pay. It's not a free service. It should work properly and efficiently. I am sure others have had the same issue. Hey, I keep asking why the Contacts app doesn't have familiarity fill-in? So, bottom line, if AP works for you that's nice. For me it's clunky and not worth the bother. I still have to carry my credit cards. OK, I'm used to it.
    croprktappe
  • Reply 9 of 93
    Consumer-unfriendly bozos. I used to be a CVS regular for years. But no more.  
    lolliverurbanrockerlatifbppatchythepirate
  • Reply 10 of 93
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,241member
    My insurance company also uses CVS/caremark but there aren't any stores within an hour of me so I can use whatever local pharmacy I want. Costco or Walgreen's (has taken ApplePay for a long time) is what I use although I also use caremark mail order for most of our maintenance drugs. 

    As for CVS, they took over a lot of the old Long's Drug Stores and turned them into ugly mini Walmart stores. It doesn't surprise me they're trying to roll their own and I can't wait for someone at BlackHat to show how vulnerable their system is. The crazy thing about all these me-to systems is they aren't needed. Get a good POS system with a good credit card system and you're ready to accept ApplePay and any other NFC system. It doesn't take any programming on the merchants part because all the programming is already done in the card reader. I'm seeing more small merchants accept Apple Pay, which excites me. When I visited California a couple months ago, almost every store I went to accepted ApplePay. I haven't seen anyone use one of the other one-off systems.
    jbdragon
  • Reply 11 of 93
    welshdogwelshdog Posts: 1,897member
    I loved ApplePay when it first came out. As things would happen, I was late paying my American Express bill. The card use was suspended for a few days. AP said the card could no longer be used as it was no longer valid. I waited two weeks after my card was working again and my AP still reported the card invalid. Well, darn. I sure don't need to fiddle with my phone when my credit card is right here in my hand. 

    Apple is is making money with Apple Pay. It's not a free service. It should work properly and efficiently. I am sure others have had the same issue. Hey, I keep asking why the Contacts app doesn't have familiarity fill-in? So, bottom line, if AP works for you that's nice. For me it's clunky and not worth the bother. I still have to carry my credit cards. OK, I'm used to it.
    My new Costco Visa card got compromised just 10 days after I got it. I had only used it at Costco so I'm not sure how that happened.  Anyway, when the card was cancelled it was automatically removed from Apple Pay - I didn't have to do anything.  When the new card arrived I added it to Apple Pay and it worked.  Not sure what went wrong with your experience, but so far, Apple Pay for me is great.
    lolliveranantksundaramlostkiwipscooter63xmhillxDeelronmagman1979iwoodlandnetmagechia
  • Reply 12 of 93
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,328member
    It looks like CVS wants to harvest even more customer data from retail transactions, pursue targeted marketed campaigns against their frequent shoppers, and avoid paying anyone transaction fees. Bottom line is that they're squeezing every penny they can from customers while delivering just barely enough service to keep as many non-captive customers from going to their few remaining competitors. Most mom & pop drug stores were long ago driven out or bought up by CVS and Walgreens. Now the WalMarts and big box stores are dipping into the discount drug business and CVS is under pressure. I wouldn't view their lack of support for a premier and secure payment system like Apple Pay as a knock on Apple Pay. They're just too cheap and willing to roll the dice with their customer's data to improve their own profitability. It sucks that many large employers have sweetheart deals with CVS and employees have little choice. The upside is that you can usually get maintenance prescriptions from CVS by mail order and avoid compromising your privacy and security by avoiding in-store transactions. 
    pscooter63urbanrockerwilliamlondonbigjbdragon
  • Reply 13 of 93
    welshdog said:
    I loved ApplePay when it first came out. As things would happen, I was late paying my American Express bill. The card use was suspended for a few days. AP said the card could no longer be used as it was no longer valid. I waited two weeks after my card was working again and my AP still reported the card invalid. Well, darn. I sure don't need to fiddle with my phone when my credit card is right here in my hand. 

    Apple is is making money with Apple Pay. It's not a free service. It should work properly and efficiently. I am sure others have had the same issue. Hey, I keep asking why the Contacts app doesn't have familiarity fill-in? So, bottom line, if AP works for you that's nice. For me it's clunky and not worth the bother. I still have to carry my credit cards. OK, I'm used to it.
    My new Costco Visa card got compromised just 10 days after I got it. I had only used it at Costco so I'm not sure how that happened.  Anyway, when the card was cancelled it was automatically removed from Apple Pay - I didn't have to do anything.  When the new card arrived I added it to Apple Pay and it worked.  Not sure what went wrong with your experience, but so far, Apple Pay for me is great.
    My daughter, who spent seven months abroad, lost her wallet twice (pickpocketing is a HUGE issue all over Europe). In both instances, I had to get a new card for myself as well, since she is on my account. ApplePay made the transition to the new card (with a new number) seamlessly both times. 
    edited August 2016 lolliverlostkiwiDeelronmagman1979netmagestevehbigjbdragonSpamSandwichbrucemc
  • Reply 14 of 93
    AlinAlin Posts: 16member
    I've paid at cvs with Apple Pay for the last month and it worked every single time! Several stores
  • Reply 15 of 93
    payecopayeco Posts: 580member
    I loved ApplePay when it first came out. As things would happen, I was late paying my American Express bill. The card use was suspended for a few days. AP said the card could no longer be used as it was no longer valid. I waited two weeks after my card was working again and my AP still reported the card invalid. Well, darn. I sure don't need to fiddle with my phone when my credit card is right here in my hand. 

    Apple is is making money with Apple Pay. It's not a free service. It should work properly and efficiently. I am sure others have had the same issue. Hey, I keep asking why the Contacts app doesn't have familiarity fill-in? So, bottom line, if AP works for you that's nice. For me it's clunky and not worth the bother. I still have to carry my credit cards. OK, I'm used to it.

    With all due respect you were more than just a little late paying your bill if they suspended your card usage. You'd have to be months late. Amex don't even suspend card usage on their charge cards if you are late paying your bill. Amex was likely beginning the process of shutting your account down and sending you to collections at that point. This sounds more like an issue on Amex's end than a problem with Apple Pay.
    xmhillxsupadav03prolineDeelronlollivermagman1979netmageurbanrockerchiapscooter63
  • Reply 16 of 93
    jpellinojpellino Posts: 697member
    CVS is a decent store, they did the right thing by eliminating tobacco products. But they are as dumb as a bag of hammers when it comes to mobile.
    xmhillxbaconstanglolliverbigktappe
  • Reply 17 of 93
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    tweet, email, and post to their FB that you're unhappy about their lack of NFC support and won't be shopping there until it's enabled. 
    mac_doglolliverJanNLlatifbpwilliamlondonmike1bigjbdragonwelshdog
  • Reply 18 of 93
    xmhillxxmhillx Posts: 112member
    Booooooooo.

    That pretty much sums it up.
    latifbp
  • Reply 19 of 93
    God, this is so asinine. Another "___ Pay". And what part of this is "breakthrough" in mobile payments? 
    urbanrockerpscooter63nolamacguybig
  • Reply 20 of 93
    mbsmdmbsmd Posts: 34member
    Glad I have no reason to use them.
    latifbp
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