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I fail to see how accepting ApplyPay affects CVS at all. Unless the amount they pay per "swipe" is somehow larger then before. Seems kind of ridiculous.
 
Screw Apple. They seem to not have their stuff together and aren't talking to the industry in which they intend to participate. They need to come to agreements with ALL their partners if they want this to work.

Keeping my business with CVS which is right down the road. But using credit card.
 
This isn't just about Apple Pay.

NFC is a done deal - it's a worldwide standard and the reason Apple Pay works in places that don't explicitly support it. This doesn't just impact Apple Pay (and Google Wallet) users, but everyone who wants to use Tap-and-Go, PayPass and other implementations, as well as the (big) companies behind them, pushing this functionality. Eventually, Visa, Mastercard, etc will crank up the fees on non-NFC transactions, and CVS will either comply, try to pass on the increased fees to customers, or have to decline all non-Visa/MC transactions entirely, further alienating customers.

If CVS genuinely thinks they can undermine a global payment standard by creating system that only works in their stores, and blocking the one that works worldwide, then they're bat-crap insane.

CVS is NOT creating a CVS only payment network. CVS is a part of Merchant Customer Exchange, which includes a long list of retailers, that is working on rolling out its CurrenC NFC payment processing system. CVS and other merchants like what they see and want to use that standard.
 
It's not their (CVS) own system, but their (Merchant Exchange network) system, as in the system CVS and a long list of other retailers use to process payments. CVS isn't going to release its own CVS payment processing system, but the CurrenC system once it is finished.

Ah I see, that does make more sense. Thanks! :)

Still seems foolish to limit customers to one form of digital payment though.
 
Do you guys think that Apple Pay is beneficial for stores? No, because Apple gets a share of every transaction completed using Apple Pay. So obviously retailers are coming up with their own system. Yes, the stores should have anticipated this and come up with their own solution, and as a result they are lagging behind and are making Apple sheep angry because they want to use this handy function RIGHT NOW. God forbid that they have to wait a couple of months longer to do a mobile payment.

Reading through the comments above, I honestly had no idea that Americans don't use chip and pin cards. I personally don't want to pay by phone because it imposes more risk then just using my bank card and tapping in my code. Never ever had a problem with this, and thanks to maestro it works almost everywhere.

Apple is taking .15% of the total purchase price, but it comes out of the 1.5-5% that the card processor is already taking from the merchant. The card issuers will find some way to pass that cost along to the merchant, but it won't be one-for-one. I.e. they can't charge merchants more simply because they accept NFC payments, so they'll likely just increase their fees on their entire population.
 
What percentage of shoppers, at Rite Aid and CVS, actually carry iPhone 6s?

these are multibillion dollar companies they don't care about if you shop there or not

Sure, but that is now. Electronic payment (cardless) is where payments are going. Companies that don't support the new standard now will not suffer immediately but betting on the wrong horse or ignoring this trend will hurt them in the medium and certainly in the long term.
 
Reason?

Is this happening because the nature of Apply Pay prevents tracking of customer purchasing trends?

If you visit a shop every day and buy a different item, Apple Pay generates a new code with each transaction, the vendor can't get any of your credit card details, so doesn't know it's you - which is bad for brick and mortar stores as they can't track purchasing habits...

Or have I got it wrong?

This was cited as a reason why here in the UK, our Undeground/bus/tram public transport networks can't use Apple Pay, since the system needs to know when the same person has travelled more than once so certain discounts/price caps can be applied.
 
Screw Apple. They seem to not have their stuff together and aren't talking to the industry in which they intend to participate. They need to come to agreements with ALL their partners if they want this to work.

Keeping my business with CVS which is right down the road. But using credit card.

CVS already accepted payments with NFC. This isn't Apple screwing up, this is CVS (and Rite Aid) playing stupid. Which is also affecting Android users.
 
They don't use terminals - they scan a QR code on your phone in an app, and it is linked to a form of payment. One option being linking a checking account for ACH payments.

This bypasses any merchant fees.

No, you misunderstand. There are NFC TERMINALS currently in there. That's what was shut down. My question is, who owns the terminals: Rite Aid/CVS or MCX. MCX's own upcoming standard is barcode but there are NFC terminals currently in all these stores.
 
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The total number of iPhone 6 owners, with Apple Pay, is an unseen blip in the total consuming public, these companies won't even notice.

Disgruntled, self-entitled iPhone 6 users only have a say on the MR forum. Think about it ... in a country of 350 million people how many of those own iPhone 6s?

Poor analogy.
You need to look at the iPhone target demographic (AKA people with large sums of disposable income) and take their spending power and compare that to the rest of the population.
 
Actually, when your health plan includes pharmacy coverage it'll state where you need to fill your prescription (CVS, ExpressScripts, etc...). If you don't use the plan sponsored pharmacy you'll either be fined a fixed amount or have to pay more for the same drug. So much for choice.

This has little to do with the ACA than healthcare in general. [Some] Lower tier Blue Cross plans don't cover many prescription drugs [if at all], and some only cover Tier 4 and Tier 5 drugs to a certain percentage. CVS and Walgreens (I believe Walgreens is the best) will cover more if you are a Walgreens participant (simply open an account). As a Type 1 Diabetic since 12, now 37 (let's not go there), I have a Platinum Plan from Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield and yet I sometimes fight them on denied coverage until they finally acquiesce.
 
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CVS is NOT creating a CVS only payment network. CVS is a part of Merchant Customer Exchange, which includes a long list of retailers, that is working on rolling out its CurrenC NFC payment processing system. CVS and other merchants like what they see and want to use that standard.

But it makes it confusing for customers since they'll need multiple applications to make contactless payments.

Apple Pay is attractive because it is more secure, since it needs both the Secure Enclave on the A8 chip and the Secure Element on the NFC chip to work, and since it doesn't store the actual credit card number and uses tokenization. Apple Pay is also convenient since the user doesn't need to activate a special app.
 
Poor analogy.
You need to look at the iPhone target demographic (AKA people with large sums of disposable income) and take their spending power and compare that to the rest of the population.

I think if you check the demographic, it's tilted to the teenager crowd who have NO money of their own,
 
This is really an indicator of just how successful Apple Pay already is. These stores accepted other NFC payments without complaint--because so few people used them a that they didn't perceive a threat to their long term plans.

Now in less than a week, Apple Pay must have been used so often that it scared them into a defensive posture. If it was just a few customers they wouldn't have cared.

It's just going to be funny when Apple rejects their app. Just like they pulled Bose products from their stores--Apple isn't required to distribute any product they don't want to.

That is a good point. I have a lot of prescriptions at CVS, I know I'm 33 and am a mess already, and they know me so well there, I am on a first name basis with far too many of the pharmacists, but I digress. I already emailed CVS saying I am transferring ALL my scripts to Walgreens. They are just two blocks further down. But of all the times I been to CVS, I saw one person use I think a Nexus or similar to make a purchase using NFC. It was pretty cool (this was before Apple decided to join the NFC party when Phil Schiller was still saying its stupid)
 
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CVS is NOT creating a CVS only payment network. CVS is a part of Merchant Customer Exchange, which includes a long list of retailers, that is working on rolling out its CurrenC NFC payment processing system. CVS and other merchants like what they see and want to use that standard.

Doesn't matter. The banks and card companies hold the strings. If they're not on board, it doesn't matter what the stores do, since they issue the cards. Visa, MC, etal will simply crush it.
 
Apple has nothing against MCX/CurrentC. Up til now they haven't done a thing to block it.

The issue here is MCX is actively blocking NFC (both ApplePay and Google Wallet as well as all other NFC capable credit cards).

This is squarely on MCX being ***holes and forbidding any other type of mobile payment system.

Apple and Google are fine if CurrentC coexists with them and retailers accept any of them. MCX is obviously scared and are blocking others.

Well, it'll now be interesting to see if MCX apps are blocked from Google Play and the Apple AppStore...

This is Protectionism at its 'finest'...
 
Do you guys think that Apple Pay is beneficial for stores? No, because Apple gets a share of every transaction completed using Apple Pay. So obviously retailers are coming up with their own system. Yes, the stores should have anticipated this and come up with their own solution, and as a result they are lagging behind and are making Apple sheep angry because they want to use this handy function RIGHT NOW. God forbid that they have to wait a couple of months longer to do a mobile payment.

Reading through the comments above, I honestly had no idea that Americans don't use chip and pin cards. I personally don't want to pay by phone because it imposes more risk then just using my bank card and tapping in my code. Never ever had a problem with this, and thanks to maestro it works almost everywhere.


Can we please stop with these mindless comments? Before you go and stereotype people saying things like "Apple Sheep" have some fundamental knowledge about the subject. Apple Pay does not cost the retailer anything extra. At all. The banks are the ones that have to pay a "share of the transaction" you refer to. It costs the retailers nothing as long as they have NFC terminals.

It amazes me you were able to read through the comments and see Americans don't use chip and pin, but couldn't deduce that Apple Pay costs the retailers nothing.
 
I think they don't like that they have no access to the credit card info..... they rather use that for marketing and hackers that hack their systems :rolleyes:

I think you hit the nail on the head there. All the info that can be had from a customer's purchases is very important for these 'behind the scenes' companies that sell the info and continue to target us with ads and crap.

It's ridiculous.

Minority Report way of life we are living in. It's too damn much!
 
All of this is just plain stupid. Many to most of these businesses also have their own credit card you may use to pay and they don't lock out all the other brands of card for payment.
They'll start coming around when everyone who want to use Pay starts migrating to competitor stores. Sure the stores may be participating in another program that "is coming soon", but no-one knows about that, no-one cares about that if they do know. iPhone users care because the technology is real, in their hand and they are being actively denied using it because of political reasons.

If I were to take a stab in the dark I'd say that with the release of iPhone 6 and 6+ there were more NFC payment enabled devices added to the wild in past few weeks than there were before the release, perhaps by a large multiple. This "market" had languished for years (decades). The segment was so sparsely populated that in 2013 Forbes posited that is was about to go away.

Let's "put a pin in this" and revisit it in a year when all the other NCF payment systems have finally been released (see what I did there) and Pay has risen to the top of the heap and forced the inevitable adoption by all the vendors currently opting out.
 
I, for one, am going to use a system that is vetted by banks and credit card companies...not a system vetted by a bunch of retailers. The MCX mobile site says nothing about bank or credit card company endorsement; nor does it give any indication of when their "CurrentC" system will be operational.
 
Except Merchant Customers Exchange is an issuer (hardware) and processor (transactions), so retailers actually need them, they don't need Apple Pay. Apple Pay just collects the cards you already have. They don't issue their own hardware to process payments like MCE.

I truly do not understand. Why would they exclude NFC transactions if they're simply an issuer? Is it because they don't receive transactional percentages? If the bean counters came back and suggested that the loss of NFC transactions is negligible compared to forcing them into their system, then it makes sense, but otherwise I'm as baffled as many of you.
 
Do you guys think that Apple Pay is beneficial for stores? No, because Apple gets a share of every transaction completed using Apple Pay. So obviously retailers are coming up with their own system. Yes, the stores should have anticipated this and come up with their own solution, and as a result they are lagging behind and are making Apple sheep angry because they want to use this handy function RIGHT NOW. God forbid that they have to wait a couple of months longer to do a mobile payment.

First of all, what little money Apple gets from each transaction doesn't come from the merchant. This has been stated many times before this thread came into existence, and many times within this thread.

Second, how do you even make the connection between someone wanting to use a feature on their device and them also being a sheep? This doesn't even affect just iPhone users, it affects ANY person that wants to use NFC- Google Wallet included. Why should someone want to wait a couple months to use a different system that stores your personal information when there is a system available now that protects your privacy and doesn't require anything other apps to be installed?

Bending over that far backwards to insult people is really embarrassing.
 
For everybody whining already, perhaps it would be nice to think about why they might do this? It's not like this is a service Apple is providing for free. Just because you don't have to pay for it doesn't mean somebody isn't. I don't know what Apple takes from these transactions and it is certainly not unheard of to have higher rates for those that are not affiliated with a certain program, so it could very well be that paying through Apple Pay costs them all or most of their margin.

Now I don't know about you guys, but if I had a company and customer convenience like Apple Pay cost me my margins I'd cut it off faster than you can say Apple Pay. None of you guys work for free, and neither should shops.

You make a point but these companies are underestimating the bad public relations and bad publicity that is going to come from limiting consumer payment choices! Remember, the customer is always right! The implications of millions of angry customers is going to be a thousand times or maybe even a million times more costlier than those fees! I for one am going to shop elsewhere along with millions of other Apple iPhone carrying customers! Ouch! These companies better wake up and smell the coffee before too much damage is done! :mad:
 
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