They charge fees to small companies that barely break even; they feed off people in debt.
I'd say credit card companies aren't angels
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MCX CEO Touts Loyalty Perks of CurrentC, Says There Are 'Consequences' for Breaking Exclusivity Terms
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They charge fees to small companies that barely break even; they feed off people in debt.
I'd say credit card companies aren't angels
Threatening your clients with 'consequences' will just drive them away towards other more benevolent options like Google wallet or Apple pay.
This CEO guy needs to keep his mouth shut. He is generating more negative press than anything else.. Hire a PR person!
This CEO guy needs to keep his mouth shut. He is generating more negative press than anything else.. Hire a PR person!
Most of the MCX companies aren't doing so well anyway. Somehow I doubt they'll change course, mainly because the real problem is short-sighted management.
I don't even use that much cash tbh, I carry enough for cab fare and really only use cash if I'm going to a place like a farmers market or similar location. I could probably count the numbers of times I've actually paid cash for something in the past year on my fingers.
My daily $1.87 bagel at a place with $5 minimum for card is approximately 100% of my cash needs.
Same experience, fairly consistently too. My friend, thinking something was wrong with her phone, asked about it and was told this was kind normal.
Agreed.
I want them. I use both the Starbucks and Dunkin Dounts iPhone apps to pay using a QR code. I get free drinks all the time from DD, and at starbucks I get free refills! So, I won't be switching to applepay unless it keeps with those loyalty rewards.
Credit card companies have acted in some pretty sinister ways.
Watch 'The Secret History of the Credit Card'
http://vimeo.com/79199552
Nobody forces merchants to accept them. Nobody forces consumers to use them.
They are a product. They are not harmful, when used properly.
Where do I even begin with the spin this guy is spewing?
1) Starbucks. They are going to also offer ApplePay by end of year. And the only payment linked to the app is pre-filled gift cards. The potential loss is night and day compared to a bank account. Hackers would have already killed Starbucks if it were.
2) He paints this cartel for what it is; you leave this family you are going to be ostracized from the retail community. The threat is obvious.
3) Providing breathing room at the cost of fair competition is a hostile action towards customers, banks, payment networks, tech companies, and basically everyone BUT the cartel members.
And the list goes on. I suspect CVS, RiteAid, et al won't flip the switch back on this year and will do so unceremoniously sometime next year as CurrentC launches, and dies a flaming death as the service has now been exposed and tarnished for good.
1) Starbucks. They are going to also offer ApplePay by end of year. And the only payment linked to the app is pre-filled gift cards. The potential loss is night and day compared to a bank account. Hackers would have already killed Starbucks if it were.
2) He paints this cartel for what it is; you leave this family you are going to be ostracized from the retail community. The threat is obvious.
3) Providing breathing room at the cost of fair competition is a hostile action towards customers, banks, payment networks, tech companies, and basically everyone BUT the cartel members.
And the list goes on. I suspect CVS, RiteAid, et al won't flip the switch back on this year and will do so unceremoniously sometime next year as CurrentC launches, and dies a flaming death as the service has now been exposed and tarnished for good.
In exchange, the small company is guaranteed to get paid, if they get authorization.
They don't have to worry about bad checks. They don't have to worry (so much) about getting robbed.
A business gets real value from paying those fees. Otherwise, they would only accept cash.
I have the same questions.
TWO questions MR. MCX/CurrentC CEO: "why can't MCX run side by side with NFC Apple Pay & Google Wallet"? "Why exclusivity deals, if your system is so desired by consumers"?
When you answer these, I'll listen to what your antiquated system does!
Then I'll tell you how out of touch and ignorant you are.
Hopefully you are aware that PIN-based debit card transactions have no more liability protection than ACH debits from your checking account ...
No, it uses one-time tokens. Based on what the CEO said, it seems to work like this:
1) When you start the app, it generates a new token. Then it contacts the CurrentC backend over the Internet and submits the token. Finally, the token is displayed on the device's screen as a QR code.
2) The merchant scans the QR code, and sends the token to the CurrentC backend. CurrentC then matches the code to the one submitted by the customer's app, thus identifying the customer account. It can then process the charge using whatever payment method the customer has selected.
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Even signature-based debit card transaction may have less protections than a credit card (depending on the bank).
They may be using tokenization, but it's nothing like Apple Pay. This is just more lying and misdiretcion from MCX.
Apple doesn't have your real credit card number, and they certainly don't have your bank account number. That's the whole appeal of Apple Pay. CurrentC stores your real account numbers on a server which will almost certainly be hacked sooner rather than later. Remember, "cloud security" (an oxymoron if ever there was one) is supposed to be one of the benefits of CurrentC.
They are in full-on damage control mode. This has obviously put a hurt on MCX. Good.
It ain't gonna fly. Department of Homeland Security et al will frown hard at any means of truly anonymizing digital payments.
The tokenization systems used by Apple Pay (run by Mastercard, Visa or another processor) are also running in the cloud ...
I hate using plastic. Cash rocks.
Except that plastic is so blasted convenient I rarely have any cash.
The Rite Aid nearest me flipped the switch back on already. I used Apple Pay there on Halloween.
...but not all of it. The phone, including some customized darned-near-tamper-proof hardware, keeps the core of the tokenization system processing OUT of the cloud.
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I don't want perks. I want convenience in a system that works.
