Consumers Caught Between CurrentC and Apple Pay Battle

Despite growing interest in mobile payments, a gaping chasm of anti-competition is separating consumers and the promised land of adoption.

Mobile payment platforms Apple Pay and the big-name retailer backed CurrentC (created by MCX), are set to fight over consumers in the coming months.

Much has been said about Apple Pay, and the enthusiasm in which both merchants and consumers are expressing over it.

CurrentC, currently in a pilot program, faced a hack that compromised the email addresses of its participants and those who had signed up for email updates.

In a press conference today, Dekkers Davidson, CEO of MCX, said that their email service provider was hacked, not the app itself, though he stressed that MCX took full responsibility of the security breach.

However, it’s not this stumble that may scare consumers away from CurrentC.

The bones of both Apple Pay and CurrentC are functionally different. Apple Pay uses a combination of its TouchID and NFC to make payments, while CurrentC uses a QR code that must be presented and scanned during checkout.

While QR scanning is definitely slower than NFC, Davidson did state that CurrentC is technology agnostic, and could move to NFC in the future.

CurrentC has faced scrutiny due to its exclusivity agreements with MCX-backing retailers and outright rejection of Apple Pay from CVS, Rite-Aid, Best Buy, and a host of other nationwide retailers.

MCX, the consortium of retailers on board for CurrentC, is also looking at this as an opportunity to sidestep the swipe-fee of credit cards by connecting consumer bank accounts to the app, though they’re currently in broad talks to integrate certain payment cards into the app.

Ease of use is of course important to consider. However, with retailers split between Apple Pay and CurrentC, it isn’t difficult to imagine future-minded consumers asking, “Can I actually use my phone to pay here?”

Some questions to consider:

Would consumers, specifically Apple gadget users, want to manage two separate payment apps on their phones depending on where they shop?

Will consumers be absolutely turned off by the lack of select retailer support for Apple Pay and Google Wallet, and give up on mobile payments entirely?

Would it be simpler (and devilishly spiteful) for Apple and Google to ban CurrentC from their respective app stores?

Davidson stated, “The consumers will determine the winners here.”

All indications point to the existence of too many moving pieces, and too many competing motivations.

In the press conference, Davidson stated that MCX is open to the idea of CurrentC and Apple Pay coexisting; “In the future that could be entirely possible.”

Whether consumers are still keen on paying on their phones and not just simply swiping with their cards by then, remains to be seen.