Drug retailers CVS Health Corp. and Rite Aid disabled Apple's new electronic payments service Apple Pay from their stores over the weekend.
Apple Pay, which was unveiled back in September, is a mobile payment app that allows users to purchase items through their iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus devices.
Rite Aid does not currently accept Apple Pay, and the company is "still in the process of evaluating our mobile payment options," a Rite Aid spokeswoman said to the New York Times.
CVS and Rite Aid aren't part of the group of retailers that had teamed with Apple on its payment system. Apple Pay technology was working in CVS and Rite Aid stores over the week however, the newspaper confirmed.
The two companies have not confirmed the reason for the disabling yet.
Disabling the acceptance of Apple Pay is one way to support a rival system that is being created by Merchants Customer Exchange (MCX), a consortium of merchants that includes Rite Aid and CVS, the NYT reported, citing analysts.
Apple declined to comment on the stores' action.
"Clearly Rite Aid and CVS are making a business decision over a customer satisfaction decision," said Patrick Moorhead, president of Moor Insights & Strategy, according to the paper. "Rite Aid and CVS have been accepting contactless payments for quite a long time. We look forward to them turning the functionality back on in their stores."
MCX is busy working on CurrentC, which is an app that scans the bar code of the product and initiates the payment transfer by connecting to the customer's debit card, according to MCX's website.
CurrentC won't be ready until at least 2015, according to Reuters. When it is released, consumers will be able to download an app and connect it to their debit accounts.
"Apple Pay is the most convenient, most secure, and what's best for consumers," Mr. McLaughlin of MasterCard said. "That's what will win out in the end."
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