You’re shiny new iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus will be at your doorstep in less than a week and it will be sporting Apple Pay NFC mobile payment capability. You’ll be joining millions of Android users already using NFC payments, it’s a good day. But not so fast. At least two major retailers have said no to Apple Pay.
Both Wal-Mart and Best Buy have opted not to integrate Apple Pay into their systems instead opting for an alternative called CurrentC.
Michael Archer, partner at retail consultancy Kurt Salmon Associates said. “There will be a dominant player to come out of CurrentC versus Apple. I’m not willing to handicap either one right now… you‘ve got major players in CurrentC, you’ve got eight of the top banks and credit card issuers in Apple Pay,” “The interest level in the space is always going to be challenged if there are competing players. The opportunity, and maybe a need, for convergence is there.”
Apple used NFC chip to send signals from the device to the merchant sensor, only about 10% of the retailers are using those technologies and it will require $500 to install that kind of sensors. But CurrentC works on any sort of smart devices, CurrentC uses QR code to recognize the consumer details and QR code can be easily read via barcode readers itself. So CurrentC has a large potential for both consumers as well as retailers too.
Many fans of NFC mobile payment systems like Google Wallet and Softcard have been pretty excited for Apple Pay to join the fray as Apple always seems to push adoption of technology quicker than most. But losing Wal-Mart is kind of a big deal. Wal-Mart banking on a QR code based payment system is also a bit perplexing. There is sure to be a debate here as to which technology is more secure and effective. What do you think? QR mobile payments versus NFC mobile payments? Let us know in the comments below or on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.
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Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
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