According to a new report from Reuters, Target has quietly reached the "early stages" of developing an in-house mobile wallet, although it's not clear how far along the project is.

The report says the retailer "has not committed to launch the product," although if it does, the payments system could launch next year, on the early side. Partnerships have reportedly been made, but, according to Reuters' sources, there has not been any in-store testing. Currently, Target uses the mobile wallet CurrentC, which several big box retailers banded together to support last year in the wake of Apple Pay.

Whether a launch next year — again, possibly an optimistic estimate — would be enough for Target to seize back a significant portion of the mobile payments market is an open question. Just last week, Walmart added its own mobile payments system to its smartphone app.