A store branded payment app would be fine. But pushing it through the CurrentC App which is designed to tie directly to a consumers checking account with none of the protections of a debit/credit card would be DOA for sure.
That and pushing QR codes is what makes it DOA.
At this point they really don't feel any pressure on it. While Apple Pay is a nice feature, it's availability is so limited that I don't think it impacts consumer shopping habits. But as NFC payments pick up steam, the pressure may build. I agree that interface is the key. The great benefit of AP is really security. But customers are more swayed by convenience. The old 'swipe' method was a lot of times just as fast as using Apple Pay. But the new C&P interface is so clunky, that AP becomes a lot more appealing.
But I think it'll need to be more widespread before consumers make a big push for it. I'd be interested to see what the usage rates are for AP out of enabled devices. I love it. But to be honest, I often forget about it until I'm halfway through the payment process. My wife shops a LOT, and used it exactly one time. It seems like Americans have been slower to embrace NFC than the rest of the world.
I think a lot of the "clunkiness" issues with chip have to do with the learning curve involved. It doesn't help that banks did very little to prepare people and that merchant acceptance is
still low four months into the transition. For what it's worth chip is actually pretty fast at Walgreens, and if other retailers optimize their implementations such that they're about as fast convenience won't be a reason for using Apple Pay in-store. Without some sort of reward most people simply won't use NFC if a physical card isn't "that" inconvenient.
I'm not sure security is that big of a draw for Americans either. 0% liability has effectively ensured that people don't care about breaches much. Sure it's a pain to change auto-billing after a breach, but Visa and MasterCard have a solution that automates the process. Heck, people even continued to use their cards at Target after their breach.
What
will be a massive improvement in the shopping experience are things like mobile ordering and mobile checkout. Several companies are already doing the former (Panera, Starbucks) and Apple's doing the latter (with more stores likely coming soon). Apple Pay in that context will let people pay with cards in those apps without having to manually enter card info, not to mention the large time savings from not having to wait in lines. If adopted by enough people, it also means that retailers don't have to hire as many employees at their stores, which would be a significant cost savings.
While NFC acceptance would be nice, IMO it's not the future. I wouldn't be surprised if most stores and customers go the in-app route instead of NFC once the dust settles. I also wouldn't be surprised if in-app is basically forced thanks to most stores not enabling NFC (due to data collection and interchange fee concerns).
(As for NFC, we actually did try it before about a decade ago. Unfortunately it was such a disaster that banks had to remove the functionality altogether. Even now a fair number of them have FAQ entries that say in effect "your new card can't be tapped" because people were assuming that their new cards were coming with that feature (despite their bank never having offered such a card before). The only reason NFC is even being discussed now is due to Apple Pay, especially because the NFC functionality is only "on" when the customer demands it. I totally believe that NFC would be enabled nowhere and merchants would have chosen non-NFC capable hardware had Apple not brought that form of payment into the public consciousness.)
