Walmart has begun to roll out its new ban on Visa cards at its three stores in Ontario’s Thunder Bay Area.
The retail giant’s Canadian unit is threatening to remove Visa services from all 405 of its nationwide stores—unless the network lowers its credit card fees. Thunder Bay is the first location in which this expulsion is being experimented with.
Wal-Mart first warned its Thunder Bay customers about the change in June with a post on its website. There were signs in stores leading up to the shift, and on Monday, employees reminded remind them of the change.
Visa is still “committed to doing everything reasonable to ensure Canadians can use their Visa cards everywhere they wish to shop—including at Wal-Mart stores,” says Carla Hindman, a spokeswoman for the company. Visa ran ads in Thunder Bay’s newspaper Monday offering cardholders a C$25 online gift card for making purchases of C$75 or more at Thunder Bay grocery stores.
While Walmart and Visa continue to duke it out, customers must choose other methods of payment, including different credit card services, debit cards and plain old cash. The retailer still has not released a timeline for rolling out the new policy in its other Canadian stores.
