You may think that Merchant Customer Exchange members are being heavy handed in blocking Apple Pay and Google Wallet from their stores because they want to promote MCX’s own CurrentC mobile payment platform. But according to MCX, that’s not the case — instead, these merchants are trying to shake up the mobile payments industry.
FROM EARLIER: This might be the reason MCX retailers won’t let you use Apple Pay, even if they want to
In a conference call with the media on Wednesday, MCX CEO Dekkers Davison said that the reason CurrentC has come under fire from media critics and from rival mobile payment services is because it’s making a bold move to challenge established players such as Apple and Google in the mobile payments realm.
“MCX is being attacked because we’re challenging the status quo,” he explained and said that the merchant-funded mobile commerce network had expected these kinds of attacks from the beginning because that’s just what happens when you rebelliously try to make waves on behalf of consumers.
It might be hard to think of a mobile commerce network that’s being funded by huge retailers such as Walmart, Best Buy, CVS, Target and Lowe’s as a scrappy underdog, but that’s definitely the impression that Davison wanted to give during his chat with reporters.
Elsewhere during the call, Davison was asked whether MCX would consider switching to an NFC-based solution such as the ones Apple Pay and Google Wallet use. He said that MCX was agnostic on technology and would consider using NFC in the future but for now it would stick with its current approach of relying on QR codes.
Davison also didn’t rule out the possibility that MCX members could accept both Apple Pay and CurrentC in the future, although it seems for the time being that none of them are choosing to do so.
