“This terrible CVS receipt shows why Apple Pay has little to fear from retailers.”
2nd November 2014
Dan Fromer does this stuff so you don’t have to.
While Apple Pay is designed to make payments as easy as possible—by riding on existing payments infrastructure, with security and privacy in mind—using CurrentC actually looks harder than typical payment techniques. Because it’s designed to skirt the existing credit-card infrastructure, CurrentC’s current version only supports payments via checking accounts and certain store cards. And it comes with a questionable privacy requirement: To “confirm your identity,” CurrentC demands both your driver’s license number and social security number.
No CVS for me, thanks.
It is, of course, possible that CurrentC’s management will learn from its mistakes and improve its experience. Especially, if, say, Apple opens up the iPhone’s NFC chip—which it uses for contactless payments—to other app makers in the future. But the brick-and-mortar retail industry has few tech or user-experience successes to offer as proof that it’s going to get it right this time. (Witness its dispiriting collection of implementation failures in e-commerce, store design, previous mobile payment apps, or keeping our credit card numbers secure. Or just take yourself through the current checkout process in any large chain store.) Everything about MCX and CurrentC looks like it’s being instituted to make things better for retailers first and customers later.
My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.