Wal-Mart Stores, Target Corp., and 7-Eleven are among a dozen or so retailers who have plans to partner form a partnership to allow consumers to make in-store purchases using an app on their smartphones.

The Wall Street Journal has the story: “The push by merchants, called Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, is at an early stage, and the companies haven’t set a launch date or hired a chief executive. A CEO search is under way. It isn’t clear how much money each participating merchant is contributing to the network’s development.”

The New York Post reports that Mike Cook, corporate vice president and assistant treasurer at Wal-Mart, “said in a statement that using a mobile app will help to cut down costs and make shopping faster and more convenient.”

Mobile payment systems are getting more popular by the day. Earlier this month, Google announced a new cloud-based version of the Google Wallet app, adding support for credit and debit cards including, Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover.