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If the store doesn't use Pay, then I just use my debit card - swipe and enter the PIN.

I have no reason to disbelieve you with chip and PIN, but in my own experience (actually that of being in line behind someone trying to use it), it seems to take quite a while... and TBH, at least once it was user error - the lady kept pulling her card out of the terminal before it notified her to remove her card.

We had these kind of problems in Europe when Chip cards were introduced 20 or so years ago. Once the customers get used to them they are actually quicker than swipe cards. This is all moot though as I'm pretty sure the US will mostly bypass them and move onto various forms of NFC payment. It will be much like cell phones where the US was way behind in the early days of adoption but soon raced ahead once caught up.
 
We had these kind of problems in Europe when Chip cards were introduced 20 or so years ago. Once the customers get used to them they are actually quicker than swipe cards.

That's just silly. Chip cards are demonstrably MUCH slower than swipe, and that's without adding a PIN. With a PIN, I would say it's on the order of 10-20x slower. I have used chip & PIN throughout Europe and seen it attempted at Target in the US, with disastrous results (in terms of wasted time). Here's the difference between Europe and USA: Europe is still a quaint little place that operates at a pace and volume an order of magnitude slower than the US. Chip and PIN is fine at a local pub in England, a quaint restaurant in old town Prague, or a drugstore in Paris. It doesn't, however, work at a US megastore like Target, which does in one hour the volume of transactions that any of those places do in a week. Chip & PIN just doesn't scale to US consumerism. At least not without a lot of pain. Europeans tolerate chip & PIN because they plan to sit and sip wine and chat for 2 hours at the restaurant after dinner - while in America, the Cheesecake Factory wants to process you and get you out the door FAST to make more revenue off that table. Same with retail store purchases. More speed = more revenue. We buy stuff as fast as they can sell it.
 
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I understand there are variations as they have different contractual obligations.

How so? They both use the same NFC protocol.

That's just silly. Chip cards are demonstrably MUCH slower than swipe, and that's without adding a PIN. With a PIN, I would say it's on the order of 10-20x slower. I have used chip & PIN throughout Europe and seen it attempted at Target in the US, with disastrous results (in terms of wasted time). Here's the difference between Europe and USA: Europe is still a quaint little place that operates at a pace and volume an order of magnitude slower than the US. Chip and PIN is fine at a local pub in England, a quaint restaurant in old town Prague, or a drugstore in Paris. It doesn't, however, work at a US megastore like Target, which does in one hour the volume of transactions that any of those places do in a week. Chip & PIN just doesn't scale to US consumerism. At least not without a lot of pain. Europeans tolerate chip & PIN because they plan to sit and sip wine and chat for 2 hours at the restaurant after dinner - while in America, the Cheesecake Factory wants to process you and get you out the door FAST to make more revenue off that table. Same with retail store purchases. More speed = more revenue. We buy stuff as fast as they can sell it.

I've been to places where the chip is almost as fast as swiping. For example, Walgreens. Most others are slower right now because they rushed the software implementation.
 
currentchowto.jpg

WTF is that thing on the right? A fortune cookie?
 
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the delusion of this group is insane. Can't believe some retailers stood behind this all this time
 
Really? Every time I've used it, it's been seamless and fast; albeit it has not been often b/c I don't have widespread merchant coverage like you.

However they should not require you to confirm & sign since that makes it redundant. If they are, then they don't have it set up right or do not completely trust the system yet. I would highly suggest you report them to Apple: http://www.apple.com/support/apple-pay/feedback/

Apple will definitely investigate and contact the merchant for proper implementation. And unlike other feedback, when I reported my local merchant, Apple actually emailed me back to follow up.

Not sure what seamless means in this context, and I didn't say the charge didn't go through quickly. Same as when swiping, which is the point. The advantage of NFC transactions isn't really convincing when the process is pretty much the same whether you tap or swipe. Some merchants will not require signatures for small purchases (usually under $20), swipe or tap, but that is probably bank policy, not theirs. I see the banks as being the main source of the nonsense, at least in the U.S., where chip and PIN is being rolled out with agonizing slowness.
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That's just silly. Chip cards are demonstrably MUCH slower than swipe, and that's without adding a PIN. With a PIN, I would say it's on the order of 10-20x slower. I have used chip & PIN throughout Europe and seen it attempted at Target in the US, with disastrous results (in terms of wasted time). Here's the difference between Europe and USA: Europe is still a quaint little place that operates at a pace and volume an order of magnitude slower than the US. Chip and PIN is fine at a local pub in England, a quaint restaurant in old town Prague, or a drugstore in Paris. It doesn't, however, work at a US megastore like Target, which does in one hour the volume of transactions that any of those places do in a week. Chip & PIN just doesn't scale to US consumerism. At least not without a lot of pain. Europeans tolerate chip & PIN because they plan to sit and sip wine and chat for 2 hours at the restaurant after dinner - while in America, the Cheesecake Factory wants to process you and get you out the door FAST to make more revenue off that table. Same with retail store purchases. More speed = more revenue. We buy stuff as fast as they can sell it.
Well I don't know about any of this. I was traveling in Scandinavia and the UK last year and was impressed by the wireless card readers the waitstaff bring to the table to read your chip card. The embarrassing part for this tourist was when I had to sign a scrap of paper because my lame American chip card doesn't have a PIN.
 
Ok, CurrentC is truly dead. Now, how can ApplePay get onto the Android platform? I see this as the biggest challenge for ApplePay in the long run and world domination. 17% market share is not adequate in this space.

I doubt Apple's growth plans for ApplePay are so aggressive as to include putting it on an insecure high volume platform over which Apple has zero control or influence.
 
Would someone please introduce a unified multi-platform standard for mobile payment and call it a day?
Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Android Pay, Walmart Pay, CurrentC, PayPal, mPayment (Facebook)...

So far Samsung Pay's system seems to be best, you can use it on most terminals without any changes.
But hey, why do I even care, it's not like I could use any of those conveniently here in third-world country called Germany.
 
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Europe is still a quaint little place that operates at a pace and volume an order of magnitude slower than the US. Chip and PIN is fine at a local pub in England, a quaint restaurant in old town Prague, or a drugstore in Paris. It doesn't, however, work at a US megastore like Target, which does in one hour the volume of transactions that any of those places do in a week. Chip & PIN just doesn't scale to US consumerism. At least not without a lot of pain. Europeans tolerate chip & PIN because they plan to sit and sip wine and chat for 2 hours at the restaurant after dinner - while in America, the Cheesecake Factory wants to process you and get you out the door FAST to make more revenue off that table. Same with retail store purchases. More speed = more revenue. We buy stuff as fast as they can sell it.
Can't tell if sarcasm or not... all the big supermarkets like Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons and Asda (which by the way is owned by Wallmart) have used chip&pin for best part of a decade and are even rolling out NFC (inc apple pay) in many stores also.
 
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"Utilizing unique feedback from the marketplace and our Columbus pilot, MCX has made a decision to concentrate mode heavily in the immediate term on other aspects of our business including working with financial institutions, like our partnership with Chase, to enable and scale mobile payment solutions. As part of this transition, MCX will postpone a nationwide rollout of its CurrentC application."


Translation: We're going out of business and are holding onto a handful of sand.

Corrected translation: We're going out of business and are holding onto the hope that Google or FaceBook will buy us out. Cha-ching!$!
 
You still carry a wallet?
Cash will never die.
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postpone? why not cancel?
Postpone means you can spread the write off across several quarters to ease the profit / loss reports.
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Corrected translation: We're going out of business and are holding onto the hope that Google or FaceBook will buy us out. Cha-ching!$!
If all else fails, sell the patents.
 
I hold up my Watch at McDonalds for a quick break, and every time the cashier is like "whoa." It's freaking seamless. I just look for the "rotated wifi symbol" takes like 5 seconds. The main difference with BS attempts are the companies, I bet, never even gave the Apple version a try. Hold up your phone with an App for a QR code? then have them scan a newer QR code? WTF?

It just amazes me how companies "resist", for whatever motive or reason, to come up with their own thing, but get to an attempt that is so far below or behind the competition that they try to pawn it off in the end, like it's just as good, how ####ing embarrassing! Seriously, "try to fight the power" -Flavor Flav

Laters...
 
Yep. It's dead, Jim. We won't hear about this again. Ever.

And Wal-Mart is rolling out it's version in Texas and Arkansas this week - 500 stores... before it crashes and burns...

You just wonder how many stupid people are out there. CurrentC just died and Walmert still think it can pull it off for a system that you can only use at Walmart. Deaf, blind and dumb.
 
I have been using Applepay for the past week since we finaly got it here in Canada and I have to say it works like a charm and is quick and easy. why any company would think that scanning QR codes after unlocking your phone and opening an app would be more convenient, may be back in 2008 it may have worked out but would still have been replaced quickly with NFC technology.
 
It takes 20 some major retailers 4+ years to create a payment system, and still not have it available?

I wouldn't call that 'current' anything.
 
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You just wonder how many stupid people are out there. CurrentC just died and Walmert still think it can pull it off for a system that you can only use at Walmart. Deaf, blind and dumb.

Their app has over 20 million downloads, Walmart Pay is just 5 months old and shows promise, and their rollout to nearly 600 additional stores is what killed CurrentC. They'd be crazy not to try.
 
With the last nail going in the CurrentC coffin, I am hoping Target and Walmart will climb down and allow NFC. I reduced my Walmart and Target purchases because I just find it incredibly convenient to pay using my Apple Watch. I would hope that the banks will allow transactions up to $75 or so without Signature. This week I got a letter from Fidelity that their new card will be move from FIA card services to Elan financial services and they will now increase the cash back to 2% and also allow Apple pay. I think those with cash in the pocket are putting their money where their mouth is and banks and retailers are getting the message loud and clear. Apple pay and Android pay is the way to go.
[doublepost=1463457265][/doublepost]I would like to see a USB adapter that can take in Apply pay for on-line transactions using bluetooth. Any techies want to create this product? If the security is good, it will take off like a rocket.

In February, my sister bought a new car and put the whole 21k$ on her AMEX via ApplePay (she paid AMEX off the next day from car loan and earned 41k Skymiles too); she did have to sign the POS receipt.

My mom is 83 yo. Still very sharp. Pays almost everything using AMEX (MC as a fallback) via ApplePay on her Apple Watch. It sure has reduced the burden of her handling cards, receipts and statements; she's totally paperless.

Of her favorite shops, Kroger and Costco are still ApplePay holdouts, so she has to swipe and dip there yet. She is shopping much more at Meijer's because they take ApplePay both in store and at the gas pump.

Last week she she lost her Amex card at (tech laggard) Kroger. What was cool is that after we reported the card as lost, AMEX did the usual of cancelling it and sending a replacement. Before the card arrived by ups and she had a chance to activate it, she received an email (IIRC from Apple) saying that they had worked with Amex to update and replace the old card info with the new so that there would be no interruption of use while she waited for her physical card to arrive. (I still needed about 30 minutes on line to change all her bill to Amex autopay arrangements once the new card arrived - an ApplePay solution here would be of great customer benefit.)
[doublepost=1463479070][/doublepost]Since Walmart pay seems to be similar to CurrentC pay, I wonder if Walmart essentially got their MCX consortium partners to pay for the development of the system, then copied and rebranded it.

(Could also be that consortium members were entitled to put their own label on top of the CurrentC system; I've never heard this though.)
 
I wouldn't call contactless payment "needed" per se. In fact, I think a lot of the reasons for its rapid adoption elsewhere simply aren't true in the US; very poor uptake of mass transit outside of a few exceptions (vs. elsewhere), suppression of signature/PIN prompts for small amounts regardless of how one uses their card (only done on contactless elsewhere, PIN/signature mandatory otherwise) and (soon) "fast enough" EMV transactions are going to make for much slower growth of that form of payment.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if retailer-specific apps end up as a whole being used more often in the end due to providing a better value for consumers (either through some sort of rewards mechanism a la Starbucks or having features such as "mobile-only checkout" aka "scan and pay without waiting in line").

Isn't there a big incentive in the U.S. for the retailers to come up with their own payment apps as the fees they have to pay Visa and MasterCard are considerably higher then in the European Union.
 
Too many cooks, and a motivation that is not at all customer-centric.

That is what I think was the flaw here. Any consortium is going to struggle because of the varied agendas by the members. That is what doomed this from the start. That is why it took them so long to get to this point.... started in 2012? In technology, that is an eternity. I feel bad for the developers and others involved with the technology of this because they had to be very frustrated with the role they were in. Consortiums rarely work because the member organizations essentially get what they can and then bolt because they never completely agree on what to do, and are often competitors.
 
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