CVS Pharmacy has become the latest MCX member to launch its own mobile payment service, enabling customers to pick up their prescriptions by scanning barcodes on their handsets.
Integrated into the company's main app, CVS Pay lets customers combine payment, prescription pickup and loyalty programme access all in one quick scan at checkout.
Customers add their debit and credit cards then when they check out at a store the cashier will scan a barcode in the app, ring up the purchases, let the customer choose a payment method from the app, and process the transaction.
Verifications for prescriptions and payment like name and birthdate, signature, and PIN take place directly in the app.
For customers picking up a prescription, CVS Pay offers the ability to refill, manage multiple prescriptions and get alerts when prescriptions are ready within the app and then pick up and pay using a single barcode. Customers can also link their ExtraCare loyalty card.
CVS has long been a member of the MCX consortium, which saw retailers band together to take on the likes of Apple and Google in the mobile payments arena.
However, MCX recently mothballed its QR code-based CurrentC app and CVS is now following fellow member Walmart in introducing its own effort, both of which are based on barcode technology, rather than the NFC favoured by Apple, Google and Samsung.
CVS does not accept any of those payment options. In 2014 the company disabled NFC terminals in an attempt to shut out the just-launched Apple Pay.
CVS Pay has already launched in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, with a nationwide rollout expected to kick off later this year.