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Apple Pay Rival CurrentC Launching in Limited Trial Next Month as Exclusivity Expires
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watch. It's not even that. The vast majority of Americans are perfectly okay with swiping. They will likely be okay with inserting their new chip-enabled cards as well after an initial round of complaining. CurrentC, Apple Pay and everyone else has to prove that they're better than just using a physical card and so far, CurrentC hasn't made the cut. It's still too early to tell for the others.
I'm thinking they know that this is going to fail and that the partners will jump ship as soon as the three-year exclusivity contract expires. But I also think they have some kind of obligation to launch this because if they don't, those said partners will surely sue them because they could have hopped on the Apple Pay wagon a year ago and couldn't because of the contract.
So the soft launch is probably a way for them to say "see, we tried, now go away". Or something.
So the soft launch is probably a way for them to say "see, we tried, now go away". Or something.
Well they said they would do NFC at a later date, unlike currentc, although some of the MCX members have decided to support Apple Pay in the US, but none have it turned on yet.
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Yeah and it makes us look like one of the dumbest countries in the world. I bet even in the poorest parts of Africa people are more familiar with EMV technology than most American's are.
As one of the richest countries in the world, we should be leading by example. It's ridiculous how most people don't understand the amount of card fraud that occurs due to the magnetic stripe and compare it to other countries.
It was pushed in most other places via a combination of a) the government mandating it and/or b) a small set of banks being forward thinking and adopting it before people even think about doing (a). The only consideration for US banks is profit and the only reason we're even doing it now is because their profit's actually starting to take a hit.
I imagine adopting some sort of easy to use person to person money transfer system/getting rid of checks will happen in a similar fashion but that's a different discussion altogether. Who knows, most people may just have a Venmo, a Google and a Square Cash account to make sure they can send/receive money from anyone.
This system's likelihood of success can be measured by: "if the idea was proposed today, would it make sense and be worth doing?"
The system is on the life support of its sponsors who would love, more than data capture, to capture the fees they pay to the cc networks. (This was the wet-dream of a Walmart VP who was looking for leverage to hurt Visa.). Since the buy-in fee is already a sunk-cost with no hope of recovery, the consortium members will let it launch and, if spurned by NFC using customers, die.
While this system might have made sense in the pre-NFC world of 2012, if it doesn't launch with NFC support, it will die a slow clunky death while helping to sell NFC in general and Apple Pay in particular.
The system is on the life support of its sponsors who would love, more than data capture, to capture the fees they pay to the cc networks. (This was the wet-dream of a Walmart VP who was looking for leverage to hurt Visa.). Since the buy-in fee is already a sunk-cost with no hope of recovery, the consortium members will let it launch and, if spurned by NFC using customers, die.
While this system might have made sense in the pre-NFC world of 2012, if it doesn't launch with NFC support, it will die a slow clunky death while helping to sell NFC in general and Apple Pay in particular.
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Use NFC, but not quite as cleverly as Apple Pay works. (No kidding). I'm glad I had to tell you this. ;0)
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There's Google Pay for Android devices.
Samsung even has its own Samsung Pay for its S phones.
All of them are at least better than this CurrentC crap.
It's funny you mention options, since all of the companies behind this have forced all other mobile payments out of their stores....
Wait a minute… they are now preparing to launch, just as the three-year exclusivity period is expiring?
Wouldn't it have been smarter to begin the exclusivity period AFTER the product was ready?
Wouldn't it have been smarter to begin the exclusivity period AFTER the product was ready?
the mods usually delete posts like this but if any thread deserves a temporary lifting of the ban it's this one
It is not a real Apple Pay Rival unless it has availability in upto two countries worldwide!
Dude... I'd be staring on that green blob on the meat a lot longer than 0.6 seconds...its does a lot to know what you bought and there for what others like you might buy... Heres another example of how what you think is useless data is very valuable go to a mall and look at one of those LCD display boards theres a chance what you are looking at is being tracked you should know that data is very valuable even if you did not buy anything you looked at look at this pic it might help you understand better .. a company I'm affiliated with makes billions of this technology every year and to keep this on apple topic the largest company competing in this space is Apple INC and the patents it holds related to it
(yeah... I know that it's the time and location spent on the look... just having fun.)
It was technically not stealing. She didn't deprive you of the card, and had no intention to do so. Any money coming out of your account was money that you owed the store.
CurrentC has all the trappings of a solution that solves a problem for the store while creating problems for the customer, I'm not trusting my bank account data to retailers who have time and again failed to protect financial information, and not to mention all the credit card rewards I'll miss out on, and on top of that, letting retailers mine my data??? No thanks! I quit shopping at CVS because they won't take apple pay when I have a Walgreens nearby! CurrentC is like taking consumers back to the Stone Age, it's like the backers of CurrentC can only see the trees and not the forest.
Out of curiosity, would some of the disadvantages of CurrentC be diminished if one were to add something like a Target REDcard to it instead of your checking account? Presumably you'd still be covered by fraud liability laws if you did that, right? Would you be allowed to use CurrentC at say Walmart or Lowe's with a REDcard?
At the end of the day the poor usability is going to do it in more than anything else but if this is possible Walmart might be able to attract at least a few people to it.
At the end of the day the poor usability is going to do it in more than anything else but if this is possible Walmart might be able to attract at least a few people to it.
