Consortium behind Apple Pay competitor CurrentC replaces CEO
The Merchant Customer Exchange, better known by its acronym MCX, announced on Tuesday that it has named payments expert Brian V. Mooney as interim CEO, replacing former chief executive Dekkers Davidson.
According to MCX, Mooney most recently served as CEO and board member of Bank of America Merchant Services.
The executive level shakeup comes as MCX inches closer to throwing its hat into the mobile payments ring with CurrentC, which is planned to go live at major partner retailers including Walmart and The Gap sometime this year. The as-yet-unreleased solution will face stiff competition from the likes of Apple Pay, which has seen decent adoption since its release in October.
MCX made headlines last year when members CVS and Rite Aid switched off Apple Pay compatibility at point of sale terminals just after the service launched. The move was later attributed to contractual obligations that forbid companies under the MCX umbrella from using alternative mobile payment services.
Facing criticism for limiting customer choice, then-CEO Davidson said such protections are necessary for a successful CurrentC rollout, adding that the exclusivity period would be "measured in months, not years."
"I would observe parenthetically that I don't think too many people complained when Apple went to market with the exclusive that you could only buy it at AT&T, which was the case for a while, and I think that was a reasonable business decision that Apple made," Davidson said at the time.
Today's news comes after Apple CEO Tim Cook dropped a bombshell during a quarterly earnings conference call on Monday, saying major MCX member Best Buy will roll out in-store Apple Pay support later this year. It is not known at this time if other retailers have plans to follow suit.
According to MCX, Mooney most recently served as CEO and board member of Bank of America Merchant Services.
The executive level shakeup comes as MCX inches closer to throwing its hat into the mobile payments ring with CurrentC, which is planned to go live at major partner retailers including Walmart and The Gap sometime this year. The as-yet-unreleased solution will face stiff competition from the likes of Apple Pay, which has seen decent adoption since its release in October.
MCX made headlines last year when members CVS and Rite Aid switched off Apple Pay compatibility at point of sale terminals just after the service launched. The move was later attributed to contractual obligations that forbid companies under the MCX umbrella from using alternative mobile payment services.
Facing criticism for limiting customer choice, then-CEO Davidson said such protections are necessary for a successful CurrentC rollout, adding that the exclusivity period would be "measured in months, not years."
"I would observe parenthetically that I don't think too many people complained when Apple went to market with the exclusive that you could only buy it at AT&T, which was the case for a while, and I think that was a reasonable business decision that Apple made," Davidson said at the time.
Today's news comes after Apple CEO Tim Cook dropped a bombshell during a quarterly earnings conference call on Monday, saying major MCX member Best Buy will roll out in-store Apple Pay support later this year. It is not known at this time if other retailers have plans to follow suit.
Comments
CurrentC is a joke.
The banks won't cover you because you bypassed their regular security measures by allowing a direct draft account... They'll just look at you funny and tell you it's not their fault you authorized CurrentC a blank check.
CurrentC = DOA
To adopt this philosophy is to not see the forest for the trees. A TREMENDOUS amount of money is spent every day by people who don't have money. How is this possible? Credit cards. If we were to eliminate the ability for consumers to go into debt to purchase the things they want, you would see the bottom fall right out of these retailers who are backing CurrentC.
CurrentC has managed to accomplish four major things so far: 1.) leak data 2.) completely erode any consumer confidence in their brand 3.) piss people off 4.) make executives at Visa, MasterCard, Amex, and Apple bellow with laughter.
This firing of the ceo is the official beginning of the end for this mcx outfit.
Too bad as their currentc was so cleverly named... I for one was looking forward to playing QR ping pong with cashiers...
Dekker's was a false comparison. Demand for iPhones today blinds us to what supply and demand were like in the early years. Apple had just about enough capacity to keep up with one carrier. It was a beautiful plan driven by necessity, but the exclusivity also worked to Apple's benefit as much as AT&T's.
Dekker's business decision was to turn customers away from making purchases through an established secure system with limitless capacity. There was no physical reason why they couldn't have left the ?Pay switch on.
They don't think too many ppl complained when iPhone was only through AT&T? I'm not an American, but that seemed to be a huge factor early on... I think that hurt iPhone initial adoption, and massively helped at&t which seemed to be a dog losing ground rapidly.
I think it's the wrong argument, anyway. iPhone only being available on AT&T is a product only available from a single provider - but the issue under discussion is the opposite. If it were the former issue, it would be like saying "CurrentC is only available from a few retailers during the expansion period", which is something I think consumers understand completely. What's really happening is the latter, opposite issue, which is "retailers we partner with are only allowed to use CurrentC". That's less acceptable, and the proper analogy would actually be if Apple had forced AT&T to offer only iPhone for the first 6 months it was on the market, and remove all the other smartphones that were available at the time.
No wonder Walmart was all for MCX...they could pick up a fraction of a point of profit by shedding fraud liability... Dumb, badly-dressed fat people would suffer, but then Walmart never cared about them anyway...
Compare that to Apple Pay. It's a tokenized system that's protected by your fingerprint with a layer of protection from the credit card company. Plus, you don't have to wake your phone to use it. And being a marketing powerhouse with a proven customer satisfaction track record like Apple has, which one do you think will take off?
Sounds like a misspelled blackcurrant drink!
Dekkers rubs his hands together with glee. Yessss! They're arguing about AT&T instead of CurrentC! I've deflected criticism! Muwahahahaha!
Wasn't it Cingular who adopted the iPhone first,
My recollection is that is was Cingular. Actually, it's still Cingular. They bought AT&T and changed their name.
No. Cingular had already been bought by att (or bought att and changed name to att) before the iPhone came out. It was an att deal from the start
Ok who bought who? Now I am confused ????
Wasn't it Cingular who adopted the iPhone first, who than got bought off by att? And wasn't Cingular the only ones who gave iPhone a try with apple's terms? And then every phone company were trying to jump in the iPhone bandwagon. And then they had to pay a lot of money. And wasn't the iPhone a revolutionary product? My point is STFU! you are not Apple and your product is not the iPhone! So drop dead already!
The exclusive connection between Apple and Cingular during the iPhone development phase was greatly driven by the need for secrecy. Steve Jobs trusted one carrier - Cingular - not to spill the beans before he was ready to announce the iPhone.
http://archive.fortune.com/2007/01/10/commentary/lewis_fortune_iphone.fortune/index.htm