Apple Pay is Blocked

It was noticed that some retailers who initially backed Apple and Google pay give up on the idea, while the new partners don’t show up. At the same time, the suggestions are that the US retailers rush to set up their own system instead. Indeed, when Apple introduced Apple Pay a couple months ago, the number of retailers who backed it was impressive, but as the time passed, some major retailers have declined it in favor of a competing option set to launch in 2015.

It is known that Apple Pay was operational at NFC terminals at Rite Aid and CVS – both of them non-Apple Pay partners, but the service was reportedly disabled in the last days.
One of the CVS representatives said that the company disabled NFC payments over the weekend. This would also prevent Google Wallet users from using NFC payments.

The media published a leaked memo, which suggested that the retailers changed their mind and decided to stop working with Apple Pay. Instead, they are now cooperating with a group of large retailers to develop a mobile wallet which can be used to make mobile payments attached to credit cards and bank accounts directly from a mobile device. This service is expected to launch in the first half of 2015.

Industry experts found out that the new payment system mentioned in the alleged leaked memo was a solution suggested by Merchant Customer Exchange. It is dubbed CurrentC. The list of other confirmed major partners in the system includes CVS, Kmart, Sears, Target, Walmart, Best Buy and 7 Eleven – in other words, all mainstream retailers in the United States.

Of course, Apple couldn’t appreciate the scheme which is likely to allow its partners to avoid paying credit card processing fees and reveal them more data about customers. It is clear that this type of information should be kept by the tech giant rather than retailers.