Posted on 05/11/2015 2:49:30 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Walmart and a host of other retailers are trying to make inroads in the mobile payments marketplace. And they're failing.
One of the most interesting, least talked about wars in tech is turning into a rout. Ever since Apple launched Apple Pay last year, the iPhone maker has been waging battle against an unexpected competitor: Walmart. And America’s largest retailer is losing badly.
A quick recap on the story so far: Walmart has spent years fighting for lower “interchange fees,” the 1% to 3% charge that retailers pay to card-issuing banks on every credit-card transaction the retailers process. Those fees cost large stores billions of dollars each year, and in 2012, a host of major retailers including Walmart, Target, and CVS decided it was time to push back. They formed a coalition called Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX for short) and vowed to create their own payment service that would compete with credit-card companies.
Unfortunately for Walmart, it wasn’t the only one trying to revolutionize how consumers pay for goods. When Apple blew the doors off the mobile payment world last October with the release of Apple Pay, MCX’s payment app, known as CurrentC, was still deep in the testing phase. Worst of all for Walmart and friends, Apple was partnering with the very credit-card payment networks they had hoped to destroy.
Now, seven months after Apple Pay debuted, the retailers are still struggling to hold the line. MCX member BestBuy recently announced it would start accepting Apple Pay, and Dekkers Davidson, the group’s chief executive, resigned one day later “to pursue other opportunities.” But the internal strife distracts from MCX’s biggest failure: The collective has thus far proved unable to get its app into the marketplace. CurrentC remains months away from reaching most consumers.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
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In before the pathetic Apple hating trolls arrive with their lame platitudes.....
ApplePay is MICROphobic!
I’m not an Apple user, but BOY do I wish I would have bought them some stock back in the 90s.
I have been curious how this compares to what is offered by Paypal. They sent us a little credit/debit card reader that works with our Android phone.
I am an Apple user and also wish I had bought my Apple stock when it was $6 a share before all the stock splits.
I am an Apple user and an investor. I am always amused to witness the non-technical users talk about things they have no clue about.
PayPal is essentially a bank owned by eBay. PayPal charges either the sender of money or the receiver of funds a fee, and sometimes both. If you are using a credit card, PayPal will act as the credit card processor in lieu of the credit card processor the merchant has a contract to provide those services for him. You can either reimburse PayPal from your account with them, or they will withdraw money from your bank account by ACH transfer. Once it's gone from your account, getting it back, is far more difficult than putting it in contest with a credit card company. ACH transfers may only be challenged within a 48 hour window or they are by law, permanent.
Apple Pay is not a bank or a credit card service processor. Apple Pay does not charge the Apple Pay user or the merchant who accepts Apple Pay any fees. All fees for use of Apple Pay are paid by the banks and debit/credit card issuers who have contracted with Apple for the ability of their card holders to use Apple pay, with the intent that it will be far less expensive than the fraud they were paying before Apple Pay was instituted from stolen cards and IDs. Apple does not receive any data about what you bought or where, or even when. Such transactions are only between you, the merchant, and your credit/debit card issuer. The merchant does NOT get any information about you, your credit/debit card, address, buying patterns, etc., so they cannot track you. If they want that, they can give you a loyalty card.
Thanks for the explanation. PayPal also hides payment details from suppliers. When using Paypal with eBay there are a few safeguards that I appreciate. They also claim to have some other security features but I have forgotten what they are. Paypal sent us a little card reader that can be used with our phones to accept credit card and debit payments when we are selling stuff.
I can see that the services have features that are different. Does Apple Pay allow transfers between two people who have iPhones and not just retailers?
Not at this time.
One key factor is that CurrentC is terrible. It collects your banking data, location, transaction history, and, for no clear reason, health data and promises to use all of them for marketing purposes. It displays a QR code on the screen for the user to scan, followed by a QR code on the smartphone screen for the cashier to scan. It’s a hack on top of a kludge on top of a jury-rig based on an inept implementation of a dumb idea by people looking to screw users over.
vs. tap your phone or watch on the screen and you’re done, with the middleman never collecting or keeping your data. No-brainer.
Bottom line: CurrentC is a solution to retailers’ problems, not customers’.
Let’s just let “CurrentC” die a quiet, painful death, shall we?
It hit the trifecta of inconvenient, insecure, and invasive.
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