I feel stupid for admitting this, but I had not thought about it this way until you said it. I've thought of it as an Apple Pay vs CurrentC kind of battle, not a battle that can be won by using neither. Their goal with using CurrentC is to get rid of the swipe fee's. So if you can't use Apple Pay, you just use your CC anyway.
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MCX Confirms Retailer Exclusivity for CurrentC Mobile Payments, but No Fines for Leaving Consortium
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I feel stupid for admitting this, but I had not thought about it this way until you said it. I've thought of it as an Apple Pay vs CurrentC kind of battle, not a battle that can be won by using neither. Their goal with using CurrentC is to get rid of the swipe fee's. So if you can't use Apple Pay, you just use your CC anyway.
Not just an Apple issue
By turning off the NFC terminals, this affects not just Apple Pay, but Google Wallet and NFC payments from credit and debit cards in general in favor of CurrentC which is trying to create a monopoly on mobile payment systems.
The government will eventually step in to squash this issue.
In the mean time if you walk into one of these stores and they refuse to use let you use NFC payments regardless of the source of the payment, whether its device or card, walk out and shop elsewhere.
I used to assume that Apple Pay was attempting to be an exclusive monopolizing payment scheme, but in reality the fact that Apple Pay works with existing NFC terminals just means that Apple Pay just is another option consumers have. For instance there should be no retailer that only allows Apple Pay payments because there is no reason why payments from other NFC sources are not accepted.
But what CurrentC wants is exclusivity as a payment mechanism from mobile devices, and this is not acceptable. Consumers can vote with their wallets, and when these retailers start seeing a slowdown in revenue because people are avoiding them, they will smarten up quickly.
By turning off the NFC terminals, this affects not just Apple Pay, but Google Wallet and NFC payments from credit and debit cards in general in favor of CurrentC which is trying to create a monopoly on mobile payment systems.
The government will eventually step in to squash this issue.
In the mean time if you walk into one of these stores and they refuse to use let you use NFC payments regardless of the source of the payment, whether its device or card, walk out and shop elsewhere.
I used to assume that Apple Pay was attempting to be an exclusive monopolizing payment scheme, but in reality the fact that Apple Pay works with existing NFC terminals just means that Apple Pay just is another option consumers have. For instance there should be no retailer that only allows Apple Pay payments because there is no reason why payments from other NFC sources are not accepted.
But what CurrentC wants is exclusivity as a payment mechanism from mobile devices, and this is not acceptable. Consumers can vote with their wallets, and when these retailers start seeing a slowdown in revenue because people are avoiding them, they will smarten up quickly.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Like Apple or any other business, a key objective is to grow profits. If they can succeed in cutting out the big bank middlemen, their profits will go up without having to raise prices. That's good for them. Getting a few percentage points of every single transaction is a very lucrative business. Look at the gas station pricing of appending 9/10ths of 1 cent to the cost of gasoline. Why do they do that? Because there's a lot of money in 9/10ths of 1 cent per gallon sold. Now think about that same concept at 2% or so of every transaction.
I wonder how many MCX stores will switch to Apple Pay when it goes world wide.
As a tourist Apple Pay will be a great advantage to me once it goes live in my home country, whereas MCX will be unavailable due to lack of US social security number, driving license and bank account.
As a tourist Apple Pay will be a great advantage to me once it goes live in my home country, whereas MCX will be unavailable due to lack of US social security number, driving license and bank account.
I have seen people say retailers had to pay a large up front fee of 500k. To CVS or Rite Aide or a Target this is less than they all spend each year trying to prevent unions in there shops. So i would say a million dollar loss on a failed idea that had real financial upside is a loss every one of them can make. I am sure if they cried uncle visa and mc and amex would cut them some sort of heres your million back program to leave MXC. The deal is they don't want to give up on the dream just yet. I think they are forgetting people are in the real world where these things are here and now and they are some where in 2015. I know by the time they launch google android 5.0 will be out and on every flag ship it has forced google wallet bye bye isis aka soft card. Samsung is promising some roll out to older handsets by feb. I am saying by q2 the install base for NFC in North America could top 50 million users. I say with over half in the upper spending bracket Apple. I just do not think this will lost very long. Visa knows it or they would not cut apple in on the deal. Google with 5.0 can no go back and revamp the wallet to work just like apple pay. I hope they copy it function for function and so does apple. The 25 base points they stand to make could allow them to lower there margins on devices should the decide this is a worthy income stream. That does not mean cheaper devices it means better devices.
There will still be people using credit cards, even with currentC. (They won't shut that off). So it wont' do them much good.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Sure, but the system as is now is kind of like property taxes. If the big banks wants to raise fees, there's little to stop them. It doesn't take the fees they charge now to support the system in place now. Instead, there's a lot of profit atop those fees. Anyone with a business that accepts credit cards should be interested in any option that could help reduce transactional costs like these.
And again, while we're viewing this as an Apple Pay vs. CurrentC battle, I don't see it like that. I see it as existing system vs. CurrentC with Apple Pay built atop the existing system. Like Apple built versions of Quicktime, Safari and iTunes to run atop Windows, Apple Pay could likely be evolved to run atop CurrentC. User experience could be exactly the same; the change would be what happens in the background (invisible to the consumer). Existing system in the background means the big banks would continue to get their cut. CurrentC in the background might mean they get a much smaller cut.
Hmmm....
500,000 per week times 2 = 1 million, times 26 = 26 million, alas that is not BILLION..... so, 26 million divided by 126 billion, would be .002 percent of sales.
500,000 per week times 2 = 1 million, times 26 = 26 million, alas that is not BILLION..... so, 26 million divided by 126 billion, would be .002 percent of sales.
To be honest the MCX group should concentrate on the pure marketing aspect of goods to the consumer by using a MCX "universal" rewards card and not tie into payment data. So like any other rewards card, this would be all inclusive to those retailers who take part in it and give you discounts for using the card. So if I buy chicken wings at Walmart and the system assumes I might be planning a party I may get marketed for pizza at the Walmart or Target within the same day (this using something like location aware). This as a consumer would be excellent.
The problem MCX isn't seeing is that people won't stop using CC's for a system that is more difficult to use. Even if it was somehow safer people won't use it because it's clunky and annoying. That's the beauty of Apple Pay, it is easier or just as easy. Even if it was not safer than CC's or simply on par with them safety wise people would still use it. Because it's easy.
It doesn't make any sense since people will still be able to pay with plastic credit cards like they always have.
Boycot
As a consumer the issue is less of one making something easier to buy, and more of one of privacy. The MCX consortium allows all of your purchase history to be shared with any retailer who joins. As such I will not shop at any merchant that participates in the program. They can data mine someone else.
As a consumer the issue is less of one making something easier to buy, and more of one of privacy. The MCX consortium allows all of your purchase history to be shared with any retailer who joins. As such I will not shop at any merchant that participates in the program. They can data mine someone else.
You're missing the point.
Some of these retailers work on very low profit margins. It's not about eliminating CC transaction fees. It's minimizing it as much as possible. Not every retailer can or wants to have their own branded charge card. It's not a red herring.
If I came to you and explained how you could be up to 20% more profitable by doing X - would that not interest you?
Again - they aren't seeking to remove CC transactions. But with millions of dollars in transactions, whatever can be saved affects the bottom line. It's irresponsible to not explore these kinds of opportunities.
Absolutely great, I can't wait to stand in line while some idiot in front of me takes 10 minutes to figure out this QR code dance, then watch them grinning afterwards like they've just figured out how to make it to the potty.
I don't really care if they want to collect all of their users' information, I'm not going to use it anyway. But watching someone try to use this and watching someone record video with an iPad will illicit the same "I'm going to take that device from you and smack you in the head with it" response.
I don't really care if they want to collect all of their users' information, I'm not going to use it anyway. But watching someone try to use this and watching someone record video with an iPad will illicit the same "I'm going to take that device from you and smack you in the head with it" response.
It makes perfect sense. What doesn't make sense it that people think this is a question of throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Where has it been stated that these retailers will not accept CC's? I don't think that's the case at all. It's about reducing the reliance on CCs and reducing overhead. Not eliminating it.
People fear targeted advertisement, but I prefer it to random advertising.* If I start buying a lot of baby products at Target, I would rather them send me coupons for that, than for camping gear. Sure, I might want both, but they have a better chance of me using the baby product coupons. That means more sales. More sales usually means lower prices for the consumer (they sell more, they buy more, they get the products cheaper, we benefit in that... normally).
I would use Apple Pay, because it is easier - period. If they could make CurrentC as easy or easier, then maybe they could gain some traction.
It'll be interesting to see if everyone is able to become anonymous in their purchases and how that will effect prices.
*I'm not a fan of advertising generally, but prefer targeted to random.
There is NOTHING the federal government can do to compel the use of a particular payment technology. Acceptance of modes of payment are a First Amendment thing, unless it intrudes upon a protected class' rights.
(I said this before in the last thread about Apple Pay, but merchants don't have to accept credit cards at all--nor do they have to accept cash, so the notion that the federal government would suddenly compel merchants to accept a specific payment method is an absolute departure from the way federal powers have been understood.)
All the obvious data mining aside, how does this work...scanning of barcodes?
Does a customer scan the barcode of every product they want to buy and then at the end show a master 'tallied' barcode to the scanner?
I can see both the positive and negative in this.
Pro-
You could potentially save time by scanning your own barcode as you shop, unless you're still required to have a checkout associate scan all your items.
Less associates to pay if you scan your own stuff.
Con-
Less associates to pay means people out of jobs.
Scanning all your own items will work for some but could be a big pain in the ass at the same time.
Anyone know how it really is supposed to work?
Either way, I won't be using it because I do not want to feed into the mining of data for the sake of coupons and making these 'behind the scenes' ad companies more money.
Does a customer scan the barcode of every product they want to buy and then at the end show a master 'tallied' barcode to the scanner?
I can see both the positive and negative in this.
Pro-
You could potentially save time by scanning your own barcode as you shop, unless you're still required to have a checkout associate scan all your items.
Less associates to pay if you scan your own stuff.
Con-
Less associates to pay means people out of jobs.
Scanning all your own items will work for some but could be a big pain in the ass at the same time.
Anyone know how it really is supposed to work?
Either way, I won't be using it because I do not want to feed into the mining of data for the sake of coupons and making these 'behind the scenes' ad companies more money.
I don't understand people's anger at banks for making money on these transactions. They hold the money and take the risks. Should they just provide credit cards for free?
well, i wanted it a few weeks ago (not currentC in particular.. pay by phone in general)..
what i want now is the $ effects from mcx (no CC fees to the merchants) combined with the ease/security/anonymity of apple pay.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Sure. And for credit cards, the banks behind those credit cards would still get paid their cut of every transaction.
However, this CurrentC is some kind of effort to reduce that cost. So it seems it would come with tactical alternatives to utilize other payment options than credit cards underpinning the transactions. Debit cards is one such alternative where the government stepped in and put some pinch on transactional fees that could be charged when consumers used Debit cards instead of Credit cards.
Now we have systems where we can pay with Phones and Watches and Tablets. I would guess a objective of any CurrentC-like thrust would be to make more of those alternatives work with cheaper transactional fee options. Per the previous example, if the average is about 2%, maybe they are aiming for .5% or .25% which would still be huge additional profits for many companies where a 5%-10% profit is about as good as they can do.
Again, if Apple had a relationship where a profit-leeching entity was taking a bite of 25% of their profits, I'm sure Apple would be working on a way to cut that leech out. And we would applaud Apple for doing so while bashing that leech to no end. Here, you have a group of tight margin retailers trying to bring a system to market that has a goal of reducing the amount their leeches get on every transaction. We are seeing the alternative as an attack against Apple Pay (and thus Apple) but it's really an attacking against the big bank (leech) system that is underneath Apple Pay. I'm confident that if CurrentC was the "as is" system in place Apple Pay would work exactly the same atop that platform. And thus, I'm similarly confident that if CurrentC gets some legs and Apple is not obligated by the big bank partners to refuse to support it, Apple Pay can be adapted to also work with that platform. For us consumers, we probably couldn't even tell the difference.
I get it. Retailers don't care though. You're preaching to the choir. Not like your credit card company won't still sell your purchase habit info to advertisers and marketers like they already do even if you use Apple Pay.
I've been thinking about those up front membership payments. So a few of the big chains are paying $250K to $500K to be in with MCX. Smaller concerns won't pay that.
Meanwhile, the Visa/MC payment processors will be putting NFC terminals in nearly everywhere, as part of complying with the law in 2015. For small businesses, the upgraded terminals will almost certainly be partially, if not fully, subsidized.
As NFC transactions gain popularity, both with Apple and Android users, people will start to wonder why small businesses like the nice little bakery/coffee shop on the corner takes Apple Pay, but they have to go through all these QR code gyrations (or pull out their card) at Walmart. Not to mention what happens when their phone doesn't have good service in the big steel box.
The big chains, faced with customer dissatisfaction, will end up finding a way to use Apple Pay, either by dropping MCX, or by changing the MCX rules.
MCX may have a future as an alternative loyalty card program. I think it's fine as an opt-in thing; then it's the consumer's choice to hand over their data or not.
Meanwhile, the Visa/MC payment processors will be putting NFC terminals in nearly everywhere, as part of complying with the law in 2015. For small businesses, the upgraded terminals will almost certainly be partially, if not fully, subsidized.
As NFC transactions gain popularity, both with Apple and Android users, people will start to wonder why small businesses like the nice little bakery/coffee shop on the corner takes Apple Pay, but they have to go through all these QR code gyrations (or pull out their card) at Walmart. Not to mention what happens when their phone doesn't have good service in the big steel box.
The big chains, faced with customer dissatisfaction, will end up finding a way to use Apple Pay, either by dropping MCX, or by changing the MCX rules.
MCX may have a future as an alternative loyalty card program. I think it's fine as an opt-in thing; then it's the consumer's choice to hand over their data or not.
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