Just download this app, then give it access to your bank account. Then provide your social security number and drivers license number.
Now you can purchase items using a byzantine and unnatural procedure of showing the cashier QR codes back and forth.
Too bad for you if it ever gets hacked or the obvious fraud issues are exploited. Good luck getting those charges reversed by a conglomerate of notorious businesses that habitually try to skirt around consumer protection laws.
"There are certainly a lot of compelling technologies being developed, which is great for the mobile-commerce industry as a whole."
e.g. ApplePay.
"Ultimately, what matters is that consumers have a payment option that is widely accepted, secure and developed with their best interests in mind."
e.g. ApplePay once everyone get's their NFC on.
"MCX member merchants already collectively serve a majority of Americans every day."
But how well do you serve them?
"MCX's members believe merchants are in the best position to provide a mobile solution because of their deep insights into their customers' shopping and buying experiences."
It does not take deep insight to see that NFC is easy to use.
MCX: Make your own store card that works through NFC and ApplePay, entice people to use it through Loyalty programs.
The irony of course is that if Apple bans the app they'll get investigated for anticompetitive behavior.
Understand the irony, but really, shouldn't MCX be guilty of collusion? Multiple powerful retailers, all banding together to eliminate an industry standard (NFC) so that their proprietary service can be used?
Like you said, if Apple was anti-competitive they'd be nailed. Why is Walmart et al exempt? Honest question.
They are thinking of customer data when they say this and not customers.
Merchant Customer Exchange = Merchants that exchange customer data.
They hate the anonymity of Apple Pay. You know they are already pooling customer data on card swipes because they can. CurrentC is about cutting out the credit card companies the data sharing part doesn't require CurrentC. It just looks to get worse as people need to provide so much sensitive information for an account.
I'm boycotting all of the MCX stores I can. If I must go to one, they can have some cash. They can suck on their big data.
Don't pay cash. Force them to pay the fee. I think, and I could be mistaken, but come October 2015, they will be responsible for fraud issues. Stick it to em!
They are probably making more than the CC fees using data from card swipes. Paying with cash hits them where it really counts (their data). They will only be liable if they don't have and make transactions available via EMV equipment for Chip and Sign by Oct 2015. Keep in mind that is for the credit card companies. They can put in EMV gear for card present transactions without supporting NFC. Also, that requirement doesn't have any bearing on CurrentC as it is unrelated.
ya I would rather use my credit card then bank account using CurrentC if say you do a transaction for $120 dollar but forgot about a transaction a few days earlier and only have $90 days in account the bank can return the ACH Transaction and you would be charged a return check fee of $34 dollars and then the merchant will try again in a day or two and if still don't have enough funds gets returned again and again another $34 fee...
I would rather do with credit card where if don't have funds the transaction will get declined or if goes through it will post and may get charged a $34 insufficient funds fee but atleast will only be charged 1 $34 fee as compared to what could be 5 or 6..
Consider that ACH doesn't have a way to check if there are funds in the bank account. CurrentC will result in accidental double/triple transactions resulting in NFC fees galore from the banks.
I'm speaking of this as someone who handled "pay by check" over the phone before, and not a single time has the payment been refused. On the contrary, people would call in and complain about being having the wrong amount debited from their account OR the wrong person's account being debited.
I'm thinking that the weaknesses in the CurrentC system are just being handwaved away. Where NFC actually requires a biometric, CurrentC could have completely done away with the mobile phone itself and went with facial recognition. Hey if you're going to go creepy, may as well max out the creepiness.
That said, MCX isn't fooling anyone. Anyone that has an iPhone is going to go with Apple Pay, and Android users are going with the Google Wallet solution, both of those are easier to use than MCX's CurrentC which only works with bank accounts.
More to the point, not everyone has an American bank account. Visiting Canadians and Mexicans aren't going to sign up for CurrentC because they can't. But if they have Apple Pay or Google Wallet functioning they can just use it... or use the NFC credit cards they already have. Canadian Debit cards are useless in the US. It is hard enough to be a visitor in the US without running into businesses that can't accept your cards.
Personally, I think it's absolutely foolish to give any company your bank account, there is no protection for you in North America when you do it. Businesses want your bank account info because it costs them nothing to debit it, and you bear the costs of their screw ups.
The irony of course is that if Apple bans the app they'll get investigated for anticompetitive behavior.
Understand the irony, but really, shouldn't MCX be guilty of collusion? Multiple powerful retailers, all banding together to eliminate an industry standard (NFC) so that their proprietary service can be used?
Like you said, if Apple was anti-competitive they'd be nailed. Why is Walmart et al exempt? Honest question.
The statements out of Rite Aide and CVS were basically the same legal cover language that they are evaluating mobile payment technology. So they have not officially denied Apple Pay at this point. In the end Apple doesn't need to block this app because it has pretty much zero chance of taking off given their absurd data requests, crappy user experience, and the promise of exploiting your personal data and shopping habits as much as possible all within their "secure cloud". Yeah, right. They are going to have some trouble with the bad app store reviews too as it will be harder to dupe some simpleton if they happen to read the reviews.
Understand the irony, but really, shouldn't MCX be guilty of collusion? Multiple powerful retailers, all banding together to eliminate an industry standard (NFC) so that their proprietary service can be used?
Like you said, if Apple was anti-competitive they'd be nailed. Why is Walmart et al exempt? Honest question.
Apple was nailed recently by Amazon, errr the Government, for efforts to change e-book pricing. This is absolutely collusion. At least to an arm chair lawyer like me.
More interesting though is how Walmart cites knowledge of customers (analytics) as the reasoning behind CurrentC, but totally ignore the 150+ million US smartphone users (iOS and Android) and potential customers that they just ostracized. Stupid.
I have the list of vendors supporting CurrentC and not allowing applepay. I too will vote with my wallet and not use them unless no alternative that costs the same or less is available to me. And like others who mentioned it, if I have to use one of the member merchants they can take cash or tI will take my business elsewhere. I do not want them tracking my habits any longer. I tore/cut up all my special cards that "get me benefits" from these vendors and they will not longer get any data to help them track me. I hope they all choke on this!
Got all these merchants on my boycott as much as practical list, unfortunately Walmart/Sams are the only story in town. I guess it is cash ot stick it to them with the credit card and suck some of their profits. But no bank card, or info so maybe cash is best when I do not have a choice at a place that takes apple pay and not part of this draconian MCX group.
1. I am only using cash / apple pay I guess They don't want my business. I like that apples has my privacy as a focus. Targeting consumers is mostly not ok. I ran a groupon and they only showed it to a targeted audience we only sold one. In the passed we sent it to everyone and we had a great response for two years in a row. After all of thier changes to a boring format from experance targeting consumers is not a way Togo at leased digitally. Apple pay is great! I wish I could is it phone to phone apple pay / goog pay with sqaure/gopayment. I would love it...
That was my initial reaction to that "statement"... So they want to give users the best possible transaction experience by invading their privacy, requiring exorbitant personal information to use the system (SSN, DL, bank account), then use state-of-the-art imaging technology circa 2004 (QR codes that are constantly being spoofed and hacked), and secure the whole package with 1980's 4-digit PIN's???
*Whips out iPhone 6 with finger*
THIS is your state-of-the-art technology, circa 2014, called the fingerprint, with one-time-use tokenized transactions with best-in-class security and privacy for the consumer! Oh wait, that's right, you don't like it when your customers use the words security and privacy in the same sentence, because you like to data mine all their info, don't you?
totally understand the pain of low-margin retailers who for every $100 purchase, gets charged one of these.. ~$1.75 for Credit Card, $0.75 for signature Debit Card or $0.30 for PIN-Debit card.
Bulk of that fee (~80%) gets back to the card issuing bank (it's called interchange fee) and remaining goes to processing networks (VISA/MC/AMEX/DISC).
NOW, how do we think the retailers are paying that?...by charging customers more..by just passing on that cost to us..retaining their operating margins.
MCX grand vision is to bypass this whole thing and pass the trasnaction as plain-vanilla ACH withdrawl from your banks..costing retailer/merchant only 5 cents every purchase.
As long as MCX's customer experience is better than status-quo, it's a net benefit to customer..with every retailer saving those $2 dollars, competition & market forces them to pass that on to customer.
Now, one might ask a valid question..why can't they allow everything to co-exist (MCX, Google Wallet, Apple Pay)..it's interesting to watch how this plays out!
Comments
Apple: CurrentC app will not be allowed in the App Store or on iOS Devices. Your turn Walmart.
Thanks, but I could've posted the link. I was looking for the imbedded video. Not easily done on the mobile site.
Now you can purchase items using a byzantine and unnatural procedure of showing the cashier QR codes back and forth.
Too bad for you if it ever gets hacked or the obvious fraud issues are exploited. Good luck getting those charges reversed by a conglomerate of notorious businesses that habitually try to skirt around consumer protection laws.
The irony of course is that if Apple bans the app they'll get investigated for anticompetitive behavior.
"what matters is that consumers have a payment option that is widely accepted, secure and developed with their best interests in mind."
It exists. It's called cash. No data collection. No tracking. No problems with databases being hacked.
"There are certainly a lot of compelling technologies being developed, which is great for the mobile-commerce industry as a whole."
e.g. ApplePay.
"Ultimately, what matters is that consumers have a payment option that is widely accepted, secure and developed with their best interests in mind."
e.g. ApplePay once everyone get's their NFC on.
"MCX member merchants already collectively serve a majority of Americans every day."
But how well do you serve them?
"MCX's members believe merchants are in the best position to provide a mobile solution because of their deep insights into their customers' shopping and buying experiences."
It does not take deep insight to see that NFC is easy to use.
MCX: Make your own store card that works through NFC and ApplePay, entice people to use it through Loyalty programs.
How hard is it?
Understand the irony, but really, shouldn't MCX be guilty of collusion? Multiple powerful retailers, all banding together to eliminate an industry standard (NFC) so that their proprietary service can be used?
Like you said, if Apple was anti-competitive they'd be nailed. Why is Walmart et al exempt? Honest question.
They are thinking of customer data when they say this and not customers.
Merchant Customer Exchange = Merchants that exchange customer data.
They hate the anonymity of Apple Pay. You know they are already pooling customer data on card swipes because they can. CurrentC is about cutting out the credit card companies the data sharing part doesn't require CurrentC. It just looks to get worse as people need to provide so much sensitive information for an account.
I'm boycotting all of the MCX stores I can. If I must go to one, they can have some cash. They can suck on their big data.
Don't pay cash. Force them to pay the fee. I think, and I could be mistaken, but come October 2015, they will be responsible for fraud issues. Stick it to em!
They are probably making more than the CC fees using data from card swipes. Paying with cash hits them where it really counts (their data). They will only be liable if they don't have and make transactions available via EMV equipment for Chip and Sign by Oct 2015. Keep in mind that is for the credit card companies. They can put in EMV gear for card present transactions without supporting NFC. Also, that requirement doesn't have any bearing on CurrentC as it is unrelated.
Consider that ACH doesn't have a way to check if there are funds in the bank account. CurrentC will result in accidental double/triple transactions resulting in NFC fees galore from the banks.
I'm speaking of this as someone who handled "pay by check" over the phone before, and not a single time has the payment been refused. On the contrary, people would call in and complain about being having the wrong amount debited from their account OR the wrong person's account being debited.
I'm thinking that the weaknesses in the CurrentC system are just being handwaved away. Where NFC actually requires a biometric, CurrentC could have completely done away with the mobile phone itself and went with facial recognition. Hey if you're going to go creepy, may as well max out the creepiness.
That said, MCX isn't fooling anyone. Anyone that has an iPhone is going to go with Apple Pay, and Android users are going with the Google Wallet solution, both of those are easier to use than MCX's CurrentC which only works with bank accounts.
More to the point, not everyone has an American bank account. Visiting Canadians and Mexicans aren't going to sign up for CurrentC because they can't. But if they have Apple Pay or Google Wallet functioning they can just use it... or use the NFC credit cards they already have. Canadian Debit cards are useless in the US. It is hard enough to be a visitor in the US without running into businesses that can't accept your cards.
Personally, I think it's absolutely foolish to give any company your bank account, there is no protection for you in North America when you do it. Businesses want your bank account info because it costs them nothing to debit it, and you bear the costs of their screw ups.
The irony of course is that if Apple bans the app they'll get investigated for anticompetitive behavior.
Understand the irony, but really, shouldn't MCX be guilty of collusion? Multiple powerful retailers, all banding together to eliminate an industry standard (NFC) so that their proprietary service can be used?
Like you said, if Apple was anti-competitive they'd be nailed. Why is Walmart et al exempt? Honest question.
The statements out of Rite Aide and CVS were basically the same legal cover language that they are evaluating mobile payment technology. So they have not officially denied Apple Pay at this point. In the end Apple doesn't need to block this app because it has pretty much zero chance of taking off given their absurd data requests, crappy user experience, and the promise of exploiting your personal data and shopping habits as much as possible all within their "secure cloud". Yeah, right. They are going to have some trouble with the bad app store reviews too as it will be harder to dupe some simpleton if they happen to read the reviews.
Understand the irony, but really, shouldn't MCX be guilty of collusion? Multiple powerful retailers, all banding together to eliminate an industry standard (NFC) so that their proprietary service can be used?
Like you said, if Apple was anti-competitive they'd be nailed. Why is Walmart et al exempt? Honest question.
Apple was nailed recently by Amazon, errr the Government, for efforts to change e-book pricing. This is absolutely collusion. At least to an arm chair lawyer like me.
More interesting though is how Walmart cites knowledge of customers (analytics) as the reasoning behind CurrentC, but totally ignore the 150+ million US smartphone users (iOS and Android) and potential customers that they just ostracized. Stupid.
The irony of course is that if Apple bans the app they'll get investigated for anticompetitive behavior.
And the usual forum contrarians will gloat and dance around with glee over that.
Got all these merchants on my boycott as much as practical list, unfortunately Walmart/Sams are the only story in town. I guess it is cash ot stick it to them with the credit card and suck some of their profits. But no bank card, or info so maybe cash is best when I do not have a choice at a place that takes apple pay and not part of this draconian MCX group.
That was my initial reaction to that "statement"... So they want to give users the best possible transaction experience by invading their privacy, requiring exorbitant personal information to use the system (SSN, DL, bank account), then use state-of-the-art imaging technology circa 2004 (QR codes that are constantly being spoofed and hacked), and secure the whole package with 1980's 4-digit PIN's???
*Whips out iPhone 6 with finger*
THIS is your state-of-the-art technology, circa 2014, called the fingerprint, with one-time-use tokenized transactions with best-in-class security and privacy for the consumer! Oh wait, that's right, you don't like it when your customers use the words security and privacy in the same sentence, because you like to data mine all their info, don't you?
[SIZE=6]F YOU MCX / WAL-CRAP!!![/SIZE]
I get 2% cash back on my credit cards and I don't pay until the end of the month.
Why would I give them 1%? Because it's less convenient? Because it's less secure? So they can track my purchases?
What the heck are they thinking? No chance this works.
Bulk of that fee (~80%) gets back to the card issuing bank (it's called interchange fee) and remaining goes to processing networks (VISA/MC/AMEX/DISC).
Banks collect ~$30bil interchange fee. Visa/MC combined 2013 revenue stands at ~$6bil.
NOW, how do we think the retailers are paying that?...by charging customers more..by just passing on that cost to us..retaining their operating margins.
MCX grand vision is to bypass this whole thing and pass the trasnaction as plain-vanilla ACH withdrawl from your banks..costing retailer/merchant only 5 cents every purchase.
As long as MCX's customer experience is better than status-quo, it's a net benefit to customer..with every retailer saving those $2 dollars, competition & market forces them to pass that on to customer.
Now, one might ask a valid question..why can't they allow everything to co-exist (MCX, Google Wallet, Apple Pay)..it's interesting to watch how this plays out!