Apple sure has a lot of competition this year.
After the fake Iphone factory fiasco in China and being topped over by Xiaomi in the Chinese smartphone market, another innovation that has already hit app stores is being introduced by big time US retailers in the hopes of alleviating from high credit card fees.
According to an article on techcrunch.com, CurrentC, which was designed by the company Merchant Customer Exchange or MCX, is already being used by Rite-Aid and CVS as a mobile payment alternative instead of Apple Pay and their NFC readers. Know more about NFC readers by clicking here.
Still in the same article, it was reported that the two retailers have already retracted their support for Apple's invention. MCX is being run by Target, Best Buy, Lowes, Michaels, Sears and few others. The idea behind the CurrentC app traces to these retailers' intention to have consumers use their mobile payment system.This in turn, would let retailers avoid paying CC fees between the 2-3% range through the processing of such payments via Automatic Clearing House transactions with bank accounts that have more affordable fees.
A better understanding on how CurrentC works can be read here.
In another article on finance.yahoo.com, a public trial for the newest mobile payment has been started in Columbus, Ohio. This online competition is really just the latest of struggles in a spat between these major retailers and them huge credit card networks, Mastercard, Visa, and American Express. Retailers have closely fought with these credit card networks in court, as well as in Congress. And now in smartphone apps in an attempt to reduce payments power and most of all, the fees of these card networks. Samsung, Google, and PayPal are also in the works of using this payment option as well and are looking to release this year.
