The angle you're both ignoring is that when MCX was founded by Walmart, there wasn't really a movement towards NFC that was significant in any way. The idea was to beat the CC companies to the mobile payment market and make their system the defacto standard, thus cutting out the CC companies, and so while they envisioned that they would still accept credit cards, the idea was to make it so that the majority of transactions eventually would be through CurrentC thus saving them lots on transaction fees.
Now that Apple is leading the charge with a solution that uses standard NFC that is superior both in terms of privacy and security, one that threatens to turn the tables and instead lock out the merchant instead of the opposite, which MCX had planned, there is obviously a panic moment going on as MCX realises it missed its opportunity as the CC companies, with the help of Apple, have not only caught up, but flew past them.
In an alternate universe where CurrentC was launched in vanilla flavor without all the data collection, say 24 months ago, it had a decent chance of gaining traction, and they could have added on all of their beloved data collection in software updates as usage reached a critical mass. Services like Facebook and to an extent, PayPal, Ebay, etc. took this approach. Offer something for free with no strings attached in the beginning, and then layer on the ads, data collection, fees, etc. after users are hooked in. NFC in the US, and as a result Apple Pay, might have been on the back foot in that case.
As it is, it is going to be very difficult for CurrentC to get any sort of momentum going. Even with some of the big retailers there, they only list half the total retail locations that Apple Pay, and by extension, Google Wallet, SoftPay, etc can be used at now. It could be 3 times the number of locations by the time CurrentC launches. It could be even worse as there will no doubt be a defector or two from MCX before the launch date as one or two BoD's recognize the traction NFC and Apple Pay get during the next 6 months before CurrentC is launched.
That's how I see it anyway.